Inter Milan Defender Francesco Acerbi: “Porto Are A Great Team But So Are We” | OneFootball

Inter defender Francesco Acerbi feels that both sides are top-quality ahead of his team’s Champions League round of sixteen first leg against Porto this evening.

Speaking to Italian broadcaster Amazon Prime ahead of the match, via FCInterNews, the 35-year-old emphasized that whilst the Nerazzurri are not underestimating the Portuguese champions’ quality, they are also aware of their own.

At the knockout stages of the Champions League, there are hardly any teams left who are not among the most formidable in Europe.

This is certainly the case of Porto, who topped a tough group containing Club Brugge, Bayer Leverkusen, and Atletico Madrid, and have impressed in Europe in the past few seasons.

Meanwhile, Inter got out of the “group of death” containing Bayern Munich and Barcelona, as well as Viktoria Plzen, and they will be hoping to build on last season’s Champions League campaign which saw them exit the competition at this stage to Liverpool.

“We know that Porto are a European-quality team,” Acerbi noted, “they have physicality, pace, and technical ability.”

“They’re a strong team, they’re used to these kinds of matches, but we have excellent players as well,” he added.

“The first leg will be at home for us, and we hope to play a great match.”

Asked about strikers Romelu Lukaku and Edin Dzeko, Acerbi called the pair “Two great strikers, then it’s only right that whichever of the two is in the best form starts, because even the smallest detail can affect the outcome.”