Reina: “I will try to help the team with my experience, making it back into the Champions League is the primary goal”

Pepe Reina has said he admired Antonio and Gianluigi Donnarumma and stated Gonzalo Higuain is ‘a strong player’.

Milan ended their pre-season USA Tour last night and now they’ll head back to Italy to continue preparing for the new season, which begins on August 19.

In this season, there will be a tough competition for the goalkeeper shirt as both Gianluigi Donnarumma and Pepe Reina will try to convince Rino Gattuso in training that they should be starting.

“This is a very well-organized club, it’s an enormous club that wants to keep growing and continue this project to revamp the club and there’s a great group, the dressing room is made up of great guys who have helped me settle in,” Reina told MilanTV in an interview this week.

“I will try to help the team with my experience, on a human and especially a sporting level. I’ve played a few games in my career, and I hope this can be of help to the rest of the team. I’ll try to always be positive, to help out and contribute to make this team grow and improve.

“Higuain? He is such a strong player, he’ll help us a lot. He’s a top striker and hopefully he’ll score lots of goals for Milan and he’s more than welcome, of course. The Donnarumma brothers? I admire both Gigio and Antonio. I hold them in great esteem. They are great with me and on the pitch I will try to learn from them and use this competition between the three of us to improve even more.

“The objectives? I think there’s a team that is way ahead of the rest in the race for the title, that being Juventus once again, while it’s going to be a close battle for the Champions League spots. We have to improve what we did last year, keep improving as a team and as a club, and making it back into the Champions League is the club’s primary goal.

“The match against Napoli on Matchday 2? I will play as an opponent at the San Paolo, a very tough meeting which will also be our first away game of the season, so we’ll see. As I said, I can only say a huge thank you to Napoli and speak highly of them.

“Gattuso? He is a coach who still has hat player mentality, it’s really pleasant. The first month has been really positive. Hopefully we can work well together and give Milan fans many happy moment.”