Thursday, 10 April 2014
It is no secret that Inter have found things....... shall we say difficult? Yes, difficult, since the pinnacle of our illustrious club's history in 2010 when Javier Zanetti lifted the Champions league trophy to put Jose Mourinho's legendary 'Triplete Inter' at the top of the world's club football tree. Since then FC Internazionale has been brought back down to earth with a hard crash, something that the club is still struggling to recover from four seasons later. I've decided to write this article to share my thoughts on how Inter's downfall came so quickly and also share my view that the current situation at the club isn't all negative.
Inter's downfall has been a bitter pill for us Interisti to swallow after four seasons of total domination on the peninsula. The Inter we have seen in the four seasons since has been a shadow of the club we all know and love. Let's be honest with ourselves here, there was a dark cloud of a bad omen signalling a change in the club's fortunes even before the ball was kicked on that wonderful night in Madrid. Unlike possibly every other Champions league winning team in history, Inter were not given time to savour such a momentous occasion, within hours of those joyous scenes of Inter achieving Massimo Moratti and everyone else involved in the club's dream of European glory, the man who orchestrated it all announced he was leaving the Nerazzurri to start a new career in Madrid.
Mourinho's decision to leave us was probably inevitable, after all he is renowned for chasing the next big challenge, but for me it felt like a betrayal from a man that I still idolise to this day. His decision to leave on that night of all nights took the shine off the achievements of my beloved Inter. Mourinho Celebrating the treble Don't get me wrong I understand why he left in the same way I understood why Ronaldo moved to Madrid all those years ago, but his timing hurt more than the actual departure itself.
After that came the World Cup which took the worlds attention away from the treble winning Inter. So it seemed, to me, that the credit deserved from the worlds football community was never fully given to the club. I'm not making excuses for the club's inability to cash in on what should've been the most lucrative period of their history, but it's fair to say it played a part.
I'm not going to write much more about the events following 2010, but bad management and frivolous spending in the fifteen years leading up to Mourinho's departure had left the club in a dire state financially, with a squad consisting mainly of players who were ready to be phased out of the starting lineup. For all the amazing things Mourinho did and still continues to do as a coach, he has one fatal flaw - Both Mourinho & Moratti played a part in Inter's recent downfallhe is not a coach concerned with developing players, he prefers to use older established players to gain short term glory, because of his personality that has seen him continually craving his next challenge he has no interest in ensuring the squad can compete for honours beyond his time at the club.
To make things worse it seemed to me that Moratti had almost lost interest in the club after he had achieved his ultimate goal of European glory, the truth is he should've sold his shares years before he actually did. I'm sure there will be a few of you that won't like me saying that about him, and I do understand why. After all his millions ensured we won the treble, and made sure that his fellow fans got to see legendary players like Ronaldo, Recoba, Zanetti, Figo and Eto'o play in our sacred black and blue striped shirt. For that I will be eternally grateful, however, it cannot be ignored that bad management of the 'behind the scenes' aspects of the club meant that the success that should've staked our place as one of the world's elite clubs, was completely unsustainable even as far as the start of the following season.
This is where I believe Erick Thohir will excel. I'm under no illusions the process to make Inter title contenders again is going to take years, but when success returns to 'La Benemata' I am confident the club will be able to stay at the top for a long time due to the solid foundations Thohir is building for us. Mazzarri & Thohir Just look at what he has achieved already. A complete shakeup of the clubs structure, the removal of Marco Branca (he should be considered great just for that move alone
), and he has brought in expert staff to the departments of the club that need the most work. These include Michael Williamson, who has been enlisted as the Chief Financial Officer, poached straight from Thohir's other club DC United. Mark Van Huuksloot who is now Inter's Director of strategic planning and control which he has much experience in due to his past working for the consultancy firm Ernst & Young, where he specialised in the creation of links between European markets and the emerging areas of the globe (Africa, Asia, Middle East, India). Not to mention Thohir's rumoured latest addition to his back room team, Michael Bolingbroke the chief operating officer from Manchester United. The Bolingbroke deal is yet to be made official but all signs are pointing to it being a done deal.
All these back room acquisitions have a definite focus on expanding Inter's worldwide brand and appeal as well as boosting the clubs finances, the Bolingbroke deal is an especially important sign of Thohir's commitment to build his Inter the right way, after all Manchester United are the biggest footballing brand in the world so why not bring one of those people responsible for creating that brand to our club. As I say there is no quick fix for the situation the club finds itself in, but I have absolute faith in Thohir's plan.
Mazzarri losing faith of Inter fansOn the pitch things aren't looking so encouraging though, Walter Mazzarri is just about achieving the league position I was expecting at the start of the season. However, it has to be said that watching Inter play his tactics, it is a miracle that they are as high up the table as they are. In nineteen years of being an Interista I don't think I've ever witness so many strong half time leads thrown away so easily.
Ok so we haven't got a squad of superstars, and let's be honest nearly half of them aren't what we consider to be the standard we expect of Inter players, but I don't believe that these thrown away victories can be blamed solely on the players. Which leads me to my point here, Mazzarri isn't good enough to take the club to where it needs to be. I'm not saying he's not a good coach, his previous credentials speak for themselves. What I am saying is that his style and tactics don't suit Inter. He is inflexible with his formation, Mazzarri is running out of ideas for Interby always playing the same 3-5-2 our opponents know exactly what to expect when they face us. He also doesn't seem to have any meaningful relationship with his players, you never see them running over to him to celebrate a goal, or laughing and joking with him on the training field.
This habit of throwing away matches is getting very tedious. What does he say to the players at half time? How many times have we see the players return to the pitch for the second half without any passion to fight and put the game beyond doubt? Can he inspire his players at all? It certainly doesn't look like it to me, and then when it has all gone pear-shaped all he can do is stand on the sideline chewing a plastic bottle looking completely out of ideas. In years past, Moratti sacked coaches for the same things and even sometimes less.
Lastly there is the biggest problem that I have with Mazzarri, his insistence on playing experience over talent, or as people prefer to call it his reluctance to play young players. I'm not saying he should play all youngsters, experience is important on the pitch, but to play Zdravko Kuzmanovic ahead of Mateo Kovačić week in and week out is insanity. Saphir Taider and Ruben Botta are other examples of a good youngsters just being ignored by Mazzarri and left to rot on the bench.
Ever since his arrival last season I have said that Kovacic should be the player Inter build their team around, but with hardly any playing time his confidence is suffering and his performances are dropping. Why isn't Mazzarri building his team around Kovacic?With Mazzarri in charge I am seriously worried that the Croatian starlet is going to become another 'one that got away' like Coutinho and even Andrea Pirlo. Of course this is only mentioning the youngsters currently in the squad, next season I fear it will be even worse with the wealth of talented youths returning from loan, is it likely Mazzarri will completely change his philosophy and start using these very useful under 25's he has at his disposal? I very much doubt it. You may say that this mentality worked for Mourinho and brought us great success, well yes it did, but there are two things for you to consider with that. Firstly, back then Inter was already a successful team, not a team in transition, not a team picking up the pieces of previous disastrous seasons. Also Mourinho didn't have talented youngsters like Kovačić in his squad to use.
These are the reasons I feel why Mazzarri should either leave of his own accord at the end of the season or be sacked for, regardless of whether we qualify for Europe or not. I know what some of you will say, we should stick with him and allow the club to have the consistency of leadership that has been missing for years. On the one hand I totally agree, consistency will be a vital factor to our future success on the pitch. However, Mazzarri isn't the right coach for what the club is trying to achieve. He wasn't even Thohir's choice, Moratti brought him in. So in line with the changes for the future that Thohir is making behind the scenes I think he should bring in a coach he feels can give him the revolution on the pitch he desires with these fantastic young players we already have on our books, and then give that man the time and consistency to coach with the same ideals and long term plans as the club.
Who is that coach? Well only one name comes to my mind as perfect for the job, but unfortunately it may be impossible to bring him in this summer - Diego 'Cholo' Simeone. Diego Simeone would be perfect for InterThe guy was an absolute fighter of a player and he is taking the coaching world by storm, at the time of writing this he has just led his Atletico Madrid side to the Champions League Semi-finals after knocking both AC Milan and Barcelona out of the competition. More importantly though he is a self confessed Interista with a passion for our club and a preference for giving talented youngsters their chance to shine on the pitch.
What will happen for the remainder of this season and over the summer is anyone's guess, but one thing I do know is that through all the negativity and bad times the club has been facing we are now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Things will get better, so what if the results aren't the greatest and we're not challenging for the Scudetto? That should not make a difference to the passion, support and love we all should show to our amazing club, in my first ten years as an Interista between 1995-2005 Inter won just two trophies (The UEFA Cup and the Italian SuperCup) but that didn't matter, my love for the club was the same as the day we won the treble. That is what makes Inter great, the unique breed of fans that make up the worldwide InterFamily.
As the late great Giacinto Facchetti once said " Being an Interista is an achievement ... a sign of excellence! I ask you to shout "FORZA INTER" with passion, but without anger" and I truly believe that if we stick to this statement through all the bad times 'il Biscione' will one day repay the faith of the InterFamily and takes us back to the top where we belong.
ubice ga Freedy
