Gokhan Inler cuts a relaxed figure for a man whose first 24 hours as a Leicester City player have been a whirl of media engagements and training, but he will feel truly at home when he has been reunited with his dogs, three weeks or so from now.
“They’re a passion of mine,” he says. “I grew up on a farm in Switzerland with lots of dogs and cats. I have two Yorkshire terriers, Eesha and Keyah, and a German shepherd called Rago that a friend gave me when I was at Napoli. Rago has grown into a very good dog with pedigree – he has been in competitions and won the first one he entered.”
Leicester have gained an intense competitor in Inler, the Switzerland captain whose arrival for £5m seems a remarkable piece of business even by the standards of a transfer window in which several of the Premier League’s less-fancied clubs have attracted players of global standing. In four years apiece with Udinese and Napoli, he became one of Europe’s most impressive central midfielders: a tempo setter with urgent, accurate distribution over long and short distances and a thudding left-foot shot, too.
Inler also has a fiery side and it is a surprise to learn that it has been curbed, rather than forged, in a Neapolitan boxing ring. Leicester may have taken on a less pugilistic outlook since Claudio Ranieri replaced Nigel Pearson but their new signing is a fan of the sport and tells of a friendship that developed between him and the 1980 Olympic light-welterweight gold medallist, Patrizio Oliva.
“We met after I joined Napoli,” says Inler. “I wanted to change something. When you have two games in a week you always think about football, but boxing gives you the chance to relax your mind.
“I have sparred with Patrizio a lot. The first time I went into the ring I gave my energy without any control. He said to me: ‘Why are you doing that? You only have to turn your body and then you have more power.’ You teach your body to have more stability, and there is the mental side, too. Patrizio told me: ‘When you go inside [your mind], you go inside and you don’t give up.’ In boxing, every second can be the end. You show your opponent that you are scared, and you are ‘KO’.”
Inler claims never to have landed a punch on Oliva but compares the discipline required in the ring with the ability to handle pressure on a football pitch. That is a quality he has detected in his new team-mates, who showed different capabilities in a free-flowing 4-2 win over Sunderland and a tougher 2-1 victory at West Ham.
“I think it’s the same in football,” he says. “It’s important for a player to think every game is a final. I saw the team’s games this season and in both of them they fought, gave everything – they suffered against West Ham but they didn’t give up. This is the spirit that can really grow the team and the club.”
It may be that, having turned 31 in June, Inler will feel the long-term benefits of using his body in a different way. Last season was a tough one for him at Napoli, Walter Gargano and David López providing a level of competition in midfield that sometimes edged out a player who had been irresistible the previous year. A move was “not easy” but necessary “for my future”, and he is not shy to admit he took his time to deliberate between a number of clubs – West Ham, Sunderland and Schalke among them. Another opportunity to play in England came and went seven years ago, when he turned down the chance to join Arsenal.
“Leaving Udinese after one year would not have been easy for me,” he says. “I had to grow up. It was a young squad and changing after one year wasn’t so good. Who knows, but I decided on the Udinese project and stayed for four years, which was a positive.”
A series of phone calls from Ranieri, an old adversary from the manager’s spells with Juventus, Roma and Internazionale, eventually persuaded Inler to join Leicester and he sees parallels with his Switzerland team, who famously defeated Spain in the 2010 World Cup and were unlucky not to surprise Argentina in the second round last year.
“We were so great defensively [against Spain], we won all our duels,” he says. “In the end, we could win with one shot. It was one of the best and most emotional games of my career. I think this [Leicester] team now can be the same.
“Anything can happen. When we have this kind of spirit and everyone helps each other, we can have a good season. I learned this with the national team, where we have gone upwards every day in the last seven years.”
Inler hopes to make his debut against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday; Rago may be the household’s undisputed champion for now, but his owner embodies Leicester’s declared ambition to do more than make up the numbers.
