“Experience – it looks like everything becomes déjà vu because you go through so many experiences. Since I left Italy I went to Real Madrid, which was an incredible experience, and I reached my dream of winning in Italy, England and Spain. Then back to England, which is my family base, and where I wanted to return.
“You know, I have even the extreme experience of taking a team to a final and not playing the final – which is something that I thought would never happen in my career. And it happened.
“So, with so many experiences, and learning in the good moments and the bad moments, I am much more prepared now than I was. It is the kind of job where you can only get better until the day where you lose your motivation. Because I think that is the only thing that can make a football coach decide to stop, or to stop learning. That is not my case – very far from it, I am still learning every day – so I think I am much better.
“And, of course, it is one thing to come to a country for the first time and you arrive at level zero and you have everything to learn about it. In my case, that’s not the case. I know Italy as a country, I know Italy as a football culture, I know something about Roma because in my time in Italy Roma was the real rival. It was the team close to us fighting for the titles.
“So I think I am in a better position now than I was when I landed in Italy for the first time back in 2008.”
