Team Focus: Can New-Look Inter Pose a Threat to Juve's Dominance?
“How many new players do you think you need?” the Sky Italia pundit and former goalkeeper Luca Marchegiani asked Roberto Mancini after Inter finished the season with a 4-3 win against Empoli. “Eight or nine,” Mancini replied to roars of laughter back in the studio. Delivered with a wry smile, it was considered typical of his sense of humour rather than a genuine demand. “The club has taken it as a joke,” touchline reporter Max Nebuloni clarified, “but Mancini is very serious and is in fact really telling them what he thinks about the team he has coached over the last few months.”
Even though Mancini would later tell La Stampa: “I can do well even with these players” - hardly a ringing endorsement - it’s now apparent he wasn’t bluffing. Few believed Mancini at the time because they doubted Inter had the resources to satisfy such an overhaul. Despite his confidence upon his return that Inter would get back into the Champions League - “maybe I was too optimistic” - they missed out again. UEFA also sanctioned the club for “non-compliance of FFP break-even regulations.”
Mancini, however, was adamant that owner Erik Thohir would continue to back him in the transfer market like he had in the winter when Xherdan Shaqiri, Lukas Podolski and Davide Santon were brought in. “The holidays?” he scoffed. “I don’t think they’ll ever start. My mind’s already on plans for Inter next season.” In truth, he has been working on them for six months. That’s how long he said he had been talking to Yaya Toure about Inter. “He was the one to tell me that he wanted a change of scenery,” Mancini revealed before adapting his story to one of unrequited overtures. “[Yaya] kept saying: ‘I’ll call you’, ‘I’ll call you’, but he never did. Maybe someone upstairs at City intervened.”
Undeterred, Mancini has been permanently on the phone looking to attract players to Inter. After Yaya stopped returning his calls, he dialled Geoffrey Kondogbia’s number. “Roberto said lots of things and laid out the club’s plans to me,” Kondogbia explained. “When a coach like Mancini comes calling, you can’t really say: ‘No’.” It was a deal that made everyone around Europe sit up and take notice. A statement signing, it announced that Inter meant business. If you include performance related add-ons, Kondogbia is the second most expensive signing in the club’s history and the biggest since Bobo Vieri joined from Lazio in 1999.
Asked last month about reports of interest in Mohamed Salah and whether he had been on the phone to him too, Mancini had everyone on the floor again when he grinned and replied: “No, I’ve run out of credit.” Not to worry. After Kondogbia and Jeison Murillo, whose transfer from Granada was agreed back in January, Miranda, Marc Montoya and Stevan Jovetic have all arrived. Five new recruits. Six if you include Jonathan Biabiany, and he’ll soon get the “eight or nine” he wanted and maybe more. Ivan Perisic has been on standby for weeks and will join as soon as Inter sell Shaqiri. The same goes for Felipe Melo. Inter still need a left-back and perhaps another striker.
The reinforcements acquired so far in this window and those lined up will end up costing the club €99m. Only half however will be paid this summer. Aside from Kondogbia and Murillo, for whom Inter paid full whack up front, the rest are all on two-year loan deals. So the expenditure on Miranda, Montoya and Jovetic amounts to €7m this summer. A similar arrangement has been agreed with Wolfsburg for Perisic while Melo is 32 and entering the final year of his contract at Galatasaray, who are willing to part with him for €4m.
The strategy adopted by director of sport Piero Ausilio and technical director Marco Fassone is a creative one, though not without risk. If Inter don’t return to the Champions League and fail to become a regular participant again, they will be left exposed. As a rebuild this one calls to mind the summer of `88 when Nicola Berti, Alessandro Bianchi, Lothar Matthäus, Andi Brehme and Rabar Madjer were all drafted in. Inter reclaimed the Scudetto for the first time since 1980 that season and did so with the highest ever points total achieved in the era of two-points for a win.
The ambition shown this off-season has persuaded many to make Inter legitimate pretenders to Juventus’ throne. However, Il Sole 24 Ore ran a surprising piece on Tuesday claiming there is tension between Thohir and Mancini. It’s well known Inter’s owner is a little worried that they have yet to significantly recoup their outlay through sales, but he is also said “in secret” to be unimpressed with what he has seen so far in pre-season. La Gazzetta dello Sport didn’t go that far but did pose the following question on Wednesday’s front page: “Is everything OK, Mancio?” Without a win on their tour of China, Inter lost every game, failed to score, let in five and rarely looked a threat, registering only five shots on target.
Although the stakes are high, the margin for error especially fine and Thohir’s concern understandable within that context, it all seems a little knee jerk and sensational. Too much shouldn’t be read into these games. Inter won a number of prestigious friendlies a year ago and where did that get them? The results are unimportant and, in mitigation, Mancini fielded a second string against Milan and, if we’re honest, Real Madrid and Bayern are better sides. Finding fitness, implementing ideas and seeing partnerships develop is his priority.
Still, Thohir supposedly didn’t particularly appreciate Mancini starting promising youngster Federico Dimarco against Bayern and allowing Douglas Costa to teach him a lesson just so he could make the point that he needs a left-back. Leaving Yuto Nagatomo, Davide Santon and Danilo D’Ambrosio out of the starting XI was also interpreted as a show of no confidence. Ervin Zukanovic had been identified for the role after a break-out season at Chievo. Of the players with more than 30 crosses last season, he boasted the highest accuracy [38%]. Unfortunately Zukanovic snubbed Inter and chose Sampdoria instead. Montoya didn’t make a good first impression on the right either. Inter had to wait until the 50th minute for him to dare to get forward and put the ball into the box against Real.
But it must be said these are early days and Inter have done some fine business. Goalkeeper Samir Handanovic has agreed to renew his contract. Of all the new signings Murillo has integrated the fastest. Considered a “little too wild” by some scouts, others rate his anticipation, ability to intercept and cover a lot of ground at speed. He was voted best young player at the Copa America and won more tackles [14] than anyone else at the tournament. Andrea Ranocchia may be Inter’s captain, but it’s hard to imagine him playing ahead of Miranda next season. Experienced but crucially not yet finished like Nemanja Vidic, it’s still a mystery why Phil Scolari didn’t pick him for his Brazil World Cup squad a year ago after he had won La Liga with Atletico Madrid and reached the Champions League final too.
Kondogbia has everything and wouldn’t look out of place in a top Champions League side. He recovered the ball every 12 minutes last season, [winning it back 231 times in total] a record at Monaco. Then there’s Jovetic. He’s still only 25 and Serie A proven. In three of his five seasons at Fiorentina [remember he missed one through injury] the Montenegrin got into double figures. In all he scored 35 goals and laid on 16 assists for his teammates in Serie A. His record of a goal every 143.6 minutes at City really isn’t that bad either considering the limited game-time he got and the matches he played out of position. While the focus has centred on Kondogbia, JoJo could well be Inter’s best signing. Just imagine him floating around Mauro Icardi, the youngest Capocannoniere since Paolo Rossi in 1978. Persuading the Argentine to extend his contract and ignore significant interest from Spain should also be seen as a coup.
If Mancini can find the right combination to unlock the potential within this Inter team there is no reason why, other than being Inter of course, that they can’t challenge for silverware. Questions remain - like how does Mateo Kovacic fit in, isn’t Melo too similar to Gary Medel, where will Jovetic play and what might it mean for Hernanes and Rodrigo Palacio? - but as the highest paid coach in the league, it’s up to him to find answers and fast.
Mancini has no excuse. Unlike last season when he inherited a team in November that was built for another coach with a different style and system, this one is his own. Inter aren’t in Europe either, which means the fixture list is less congested and they can work more on the training pitch and fully rest and recuperate between games. Thohir has kept his side of the bargain. Now it’s time for Mancini to honour his part of it too.
Do you think Inter are well placed to mount a challenge for the Scudetto this season? Let us know in the comments below
