AC Milan coach Rino Gattuso is full of pride for his players after reaching the Coppa Italia final.

Milan held their nerve in the penalty shootout to defeat Lazio last night.

Gattuso said: "The growth comes when you play with great teams, with a little more strength, if you do not live these games, you can hardly understand the difficulties we have been in.

"They started from inside and outside. The most important thing is to recover the energy, but we must not forget where we started, now it's easy to get on the bandwagon.

"We have not done anything, many players have been paid handsomely and now they are demonstrating qualities that they have already demonstrated elsewhere. If the team is alive it's because they put everything in. I want to see this attitude all the time."