Enthusiastic Milan To Face Inter In The Coppa Italia Semi-finals, Pioli: Very Encouraging

Stefano Pioli (Twitter.com/@acmilan)

JAKARTA - AC Milan will meet their city rivals, Inter Milan in the Coppa Italia semifinals. Returning to the Derby Della Madonnina in another tournament, Stefano Pioli said he was very enthusiastic and excited.

"That game (against Inter) will always be a special game to face and very encouraging," Pioli said as quoted by Football Italia.

Moreover, the AC Milan coach also said that the Coppa Italia trophy was one of the things that both Milan and Inter were pursuing. So it is certain that both teams will go all out to win.

"The Coppa Italia is a tournament that both teams want to win. We will try to give our best against an opponent we know is very strong."

The return of Milan and Inter in the Coppa Italia semifinals cannot be separated from the results in the quarter-finals. AC Milan won 4-0 over Lazio on Thursday, February 10 early morning WIB.

In the match at the San Siro Stadium last night, the Rossoneri's four goals were contributed through an Olivier Giroud brace plus goals each by Rafael Leao and Franck Kessie.

Meanwhile, Inter Milan, has the right to advance to the semifinals after getting rid of AS Roma. On Wednesday, 9 February, the Nerazzurri beat Roma 2-0 and saw them through to the next round.

Before meeting in the Coppa Italia semifinals, last week the two teams underwent a derby match in the Italian League. In that match, AC Milan won 2-0.

Milan is currently only one point adrift of Inter as the top of the Italian League standings. Milan must focus because this weekend will meet Sampdoria.

"We started the week well, it would be good to end it in a perfect way," Pioli said.

"However, we have to focus on the difficulty of the game against Sampdoria, who got back on track under Marco Giampaolo and have certainly improved."

Pioli also revealed Milan's targets for the rest of the season. He admitted that he wanted to bring the Rossoneri to achieve better results than last season.

"Our target is to do better than last season, so we now have 52 points like last season and have the opportunity to improve."

"We can't control the results of other teams, so we just need to focus on improving ourselves."