‘Selling Coutinho one of my biggest regrets’ says Inter director

Inter Milan’s Sporting Director Piero Ausilio admits that selling Philippe Coutinho to Liverpool is one of his biggest regrets in football. Inter sold the Brazilian to Liverpool in January 2013, having joined Inter from Vasco da Gama in 2008. “It was a great regret for me to have to sell him — perhaps one of […]
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sambafoot_admin
2017-01-31 14:58:00

Inter Milan’s Sporting Director Piero Ausilio admits that selling Philippe Coutinho to Liverpool is one of his biggest regrets in football. Inter sold the Brazilian to Liverpool in January 2013, having joined Inter from Vasco da Gama in 2008.

"It was a great regret for me to have to sell him — perhaps one of my greatest regrets in over 20 years at Inter," Inter Milan"s sporting director Piero Ausilio told ESPN FC. "I have splendid memories of Coutinho, both as a footballer and of the lad himself.

"When he got here, it struck us how outstanding he was immediately — he was serious and wanted to work and you could see that he had all that was needed to go on and do what he has done so far. When he came back from a loan spell at Espanyol, Inter had taken a new direction.

“We had changed coach again — and we were looking to find new continuity, and we had changed a few players. We had changed coach in June — with Gian Piero Gasperini coming, and then he was changed after only three months [for Claudio Ranieri] — so it was a difficult time for Inter, not just for Coutinho.

“After a year, he was not playing regularly, but we could see he had the talent. Maybe we just had some more talented players ahead of him in the pecking order at the time — like Diego Milito, Wesley Sneijder, Antonio Cassano and Rodrigo Palacio — so he couldn"t get a regular game, and he needed this."

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