What Chivu Admitted on the Night of a 5-3 Win: The Manager's Own Reflection That He 'Couldn't Get It Across'
On the night of the 5-3 win, the manager said "I couldn't get it across"
After the match ended, when a microphone was held up to the manager, the first thing he said was neither praise for the victory nor criticism of the opponent.
It was words directed at himself: "There's something I couldn't get across."
On the night Inter faced Udinese and won 5-3, Cristian Chivu said in his post-match interview that the team was light in the first 25 minutes, and the opponent sharply exploited that gap. Part of the responsibility for that, he said, lay in what he himself failed to communicate well this week.
They won, so why did the manager say he was "worried"?
After a match won by scoring five goals, how should we take it when the manager says, "If I said I wasn't worried, I wouldn't be a coach"?
Some might hear it as a preemptive excuse. But seen from another angle, it feels like an honest piece of self-observation from a manager.
What Chivu said he was worried about wasn't the number of goals conceded or the breakdown of the defensive shape—it was something else entirely. Whether he himself was truly "choosing well" when it came to players not being given enough playing time. He kept thinking, even after the match, about the impact on each player he'd picked to start and each he'd left on the bench.
Mkhitaryan's joy at taking the pitch as a starter. Bonny looking happy. Stanković satisfied with his minutes. And on the other hand, a sense that he hadn't given enough to Sučić and Bisseck.
On the night of victory, the manager's mind was filled with such calculations and conflicts.
The weight of choosing
The core of a manager's job lies in choosing—who to play, who to rest, when to make substitutions.
But what Chivu spoke of was "anxiety about choosing correctly." The reason he agonizes while looking at the players' names is that there's no clear right answer. The proposition of maintaining balance without letting quality drop has no formula-like solution.
If he starts Mkhitaryan, someone else's playing time gets cut. How long to keep playing players worn down by the Champions League. Which to prioritize—team cohesion or managing individual condition—always depends purely on "the situation at hand."
Even so, he has to choose. Every week, the manager keeps giving one answer to a question with no answer.
The resolve of "not perfect, and not aiming for perfection"
Chivu used the phrase "not perfect" more than once. But there was no trace of resignation in those words.
The stance of "not perfect, but continuing to improve" resembles words often heard in Japanese youth development settings. Still, the weight of words changes with context.
Fighting through the Champions League, returning to Serie A across the week, maintaining the team's shape amid varying player conditions—in that situation, saying "we can still improve, so we're actually lucky" sounded not like mere humility but like a manifestation of the will to face reality.
In the same fixture last year, Inter lost to Udinese. This season they beat the same opponent 5-3. Even so, the manager's gaze wasn't on the comparison with last year, but on the issues he saw in his own team during this match.
Something that overlaps with the scene in Japan
In youth-level coaching settings, many coaches who speak to players after a match try to convey "what happened" rather than the result. But whether what they tried to convey has truly gotten through can only be confirmed within the match itself.
When Chivu said, "There's something I couldn't get across this week," those words, though coming from a manager standing atop Serie A, carried a strangely familiar ring.
There surely aren't a few coaches who, watching children suddenly fall apart mid-match, have felt, "I should have been able to convey more in that training session."
Was preparation lacking, did the words not get through, or was it simply swallowed by the unpredictable flow the match carries? The answer only becomes visible through reflection.
The players' DNA, and the manager's next week
Chivu said, "The strength to recover from this situation is in this team's DNA." The fact that they were able to quickly reapply pressure on the opponent after it was 2-2 showed the accumulation of what they'd worked on over the summer.
Even with ups and downs in the match content, the core at the team's heart hasn't crumbled. That, he seemed to feel, was the essence of tonight's victory.
On the other hand, regarding the part where individual technical errors led directly to conceded goals, he said it was actually easier to fix. What's tricky is organizational issues and issues of awareness. Individual failures can be analyzed. But how do you make up, in the following week, for something like "the spirit that was missing in the first 25 minutes"?
With an international break approaching, the players remaining at Chivu's disposal will temporarily shrink. Within that limited time, the manager must make yet another set of choices.
Which players to work on what with. What to prioritize, and what to carry over to the following week.
Next week, Chivu will stand before his players again
After the international break ends, a match against Roma awaits Inter.
Chivu is already looking ahead to that match while organizing his thoughts on tonight's game. Even while saying, "I've never seen a perfect team," he is still searching for what he can convey in the coming week.
Behind the numbers 5-3, the manager's week has already begun.
Another way to hear "I couldn't get it across"
Self-criticism after a won match can function as a form of media handling. By preemptively saying "there were things lacking," one can soften criticism and adjust expectations for the next match. There should be room to read it that way too.
However, what keeps Chivu's words from sounding like excuses is that player names appear within his account. The joy of Mkhitaryan getting a start, the sense of apology toward Sučić and Bisseck—words that speak concretely of feelings toward individuals sound like they come from a relationship with the players, not from results management. The weight of the phrase "I couldn't get it across" is determined by whether one was actually trying to convey something in the first place.
The structural burden clubs face when fighting on multiple fronts simultaneously
What clubs contesting the Champions League and a domestic league at the same time confront is the question of how to manage player fatigue. Top European clubs go through stretches of two matches a week; keep using the same players every match and their condition drops, rotate them and the quality of cohesion drops. Whichever you choose comes with a cost.
The phrase "players worn down by the Champions League" that appears in the article exists within this kind of structure. Choices about when to rest whom, and who to entrust with important matches, keep recurring. Such judgments aren't decided on matchday—they're built up from the start of the week. Chivu's words of apology toward Sučić and Bisseck carry a hint of the hesitation within that accumulation.
The approach of an international break brings a different kind of difficulty in preparation, in the sense that fewer players remain. Questions also arise about what to work on with a limited squad. With neither preparation for the next match nor time for individual players fully available, the manager keeps making choices week after week.
What can be taken away from the manager's week
- After a match, write down just one thing you yourself couldn't fully convey that day. Use it not as a record of improvement but as a clue for starting the next training session. Putting even a small thing into words turns the next preparation from something vague into something concrete.
- When deciding which players to use, think together about the words to convey to those you don't use. Managing playing time comes as a set with holding both the reasons for choosing and the reasons for not choosing. Lacking either creates a gap in the players' sense of conviction.
- Sort conceded goals or breakdowns into "matters of mentality" and "technical mistakes." The former is hard to address, while the latter can often be fixed through repetition. Distinguishing what can be corrected from what cannot changes how limited training time is used.
I've experienced, from a position on the pitch rather than outside it, a club where the manager changed repeatedly. Each time a new manager arrived, the contours of "what gets through" and "what doesn't" would shift. The sensation of someone's words reaching me, and the sensation of not being convinced no matter how much I was told, remain clearly distinct even now.
The reason Chivu can say "I couldn't get it across" is that he was trying to. The difference between a manager who cares whether something got through and one who only looks at results is something players sense more than you'd expect. If you have one moment when you felt "that person's words reached me," when was it?
- No Çalhanoğlu, three goals conceded, yet five scored. The true nature of the "winning while crumbling" strength Inter showed in the Udinese match
- What Inter entrusts to its "inventive midfield"—the choices and values in football reflected by an injury crisis
- Ancelotti's decision to leave Neymar and Endrick on the bench—why "not now" is what develops a player
