Piero Ausilio spoke with ESPNFC on what he calls his biggest regret, the departure of Philippe Coutinho: “His departure is probably my biggest regret in over twenty years that I’ve been at Inter. I have good memories of Philippe, as a player and also as a person. When he arrived here, everyone was immediately surprised as he was brilliant. He was very serious and he wanted to work, you could see he already possessed the talent to go on and do what he is doing now. I have to put everything in the context in which it came. I believe that today he would play regularly if he were still here, playing every game and having the success he is having to Liverpool. At the time, he was not ready physically and had to get used to a different type of football.”

Ausilio then detailed how his departure came about and what his sale allowed Inter to do: “When he returned to Inter after loan at Espanyol, the team had taken a new direction. We had again changed coach, we were looking for greater continuity and we changed some players. It was not only a difficult time for Coutinho. After one year not playing continuously, you could see he had talent. We had some the most talented players ahead of him in the club, such as Milito, Sneijder, Cassano and Palacio. He therefore could not have more space on the field, and he needed that. To be honest, Inter was working on several transfers. We were also at the preliminary talks with the new owners and potential new shareholders. There was a young coach like Andrea Stramaccioni and we needed to sell to buy. We had the opportunity to sell a player who was not playing and invest that money on an item that best meets the technical requirements in Mateo Kovacic, who we later sold to Real Madrid for nearly 40 million. And we were completing the acquisition of Mauro Icardi, then the money [from Coutinho’s sale] allowed us to sign Kovacic and buy the Argentine.”

He concluded by admitting Coutinho could return one day: “His career began thanks to us, he played in the national Under-17 with Neymar and Lucas Moura, so we done well to take a young man like him. Now we have strong owners, even if the Financial Fair Play still has impact on our finances. But I can not exclude that in the future Coutinho could return to wear the Nerazzurri again, we can always hope for it.”

Source: FCInterNews.it