Player Focus: Mazzarri Showing a Lack of Faith in Kovacic

Before Croatia’s friendly with Switzerland in St. Gallen last week, Mateo Kovacic faced the local media. Just over a year had passed since his coach at Dinamo Zagreb, Krunoslav Jurcic had pulled the teenager to one side during a training camp in Bosnia and told him to pack a bag. He was moving to Inter and would be given the No.10 shirt vacated by Wesley Sneijder. “‘Seriously?! I said. It was like a dream for me.” But it hasn’t been of late.

These are frustrating times for Kovacic. Regular minutes have been hard to come by at San Siro under Walter Mazzarri. “It’s not my place to comment on the coach’s decisions or why I don’t play at the moment,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Maybe the reason is tactical. He plays a more defensive football, the kind of football that doesn’t suit me for now, but of course I have to adapt to the team and to his style of play. I need work and time. I hope that will come soon.”

Kovacic’s words soon got back to Mazzarri. “I don’t think he meant to say what got reported,” he explained. “I think he meant that he has to improve the defensive side of his game. He believes in what I tell him. I’ve spoken to him about it.” Mazzarri has been criticised for his handling of Kovacic. After Inter’s 3-1 defeat to Juventus in the Derby d’Italia at the beginning of February, he blamed him for the first goal. “Kovacic should have come out to close Pirlo down but when he didn’t do that we ended up having a man less in midfield, which is what happened when when they scored.”

This played into the narrative of Mazzarri as a piangina - a cry-baby. It’s always someone else’s fault. Never his own. One minute it’s the penalties denied to Inter [a justifiable lament]. The next it’s a young player making a mistake, not the superiority of his team’s opponent. To be absolutely fair to Mazzarri, he had been asked a tactical question - who was picking up Pirlo? - and he gave a tactical answer. “Some of the things I said were misinterpreted by people who wanted to misinterpret them,” he said.

That maybe so. But all this incident has done is consolidate the impression that Mazzarri doesn’t have time for young players.  Kovacic wasn’t the only one to speak out during the international week. Saphir Taider did too out of concern for his place in Algeria’s squad for the World Cup.

After explaining his vision in terms of investing in youth, signing players aged 26 or under, new owner Erick Thohir appears to have compromised following discussions with his coach. The purchase of Hernanes, 28, and the agreement reached for Nemanja Vidic, 33 in October, to join this summer are, in part, an indication of that. The need to get back into the Champions League as soon as possible means that Inter, to an extent, can’t wait for youngsters to come good.

Thohir is still expected to insist they do, though, and that may become a source of friction with Mazzarri. He didn’t appoint him, and while the Indonesian is backing the former Napoli coach, Inter plan to review things at the end of the season when the intention is to draw up a strategy for the next three years. The expectation is Mazzarri will stay, but it’s no secret that Thohir admires the Ajax coach Frank de Boer, a talent developer extraordinaire.

And there’s no doubting Inter have got talent. Either in their academy which has been under-utilised in recent years - Balotelli, Destro, Bonucci to name but a few have all been sold - or in their squad which could supply the team with a young spine of Juan Jesus, Andrea Ranocchia, Kovacic, Taider and Mauro Icardi.

The clamor for Kovacic to play more is understandable. Relatively little was known about him on his arrival, only that he’d been attracting the attention of Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Real Madrid, and that he’d been compared with various Croatian stars of past and present like Luka Modric, Robert Prosinecki and Zvoni Boban - all very different players. He captured the imagination.

The idea of Kovacic was powerful. How could it not be after they gave him the No.10 shirt and all that it stands for? Worn by the likes of Luisito Suarez, Sandro Mazzola, Lothar Matthäus, Ronaldo and Roberto Baggio, by honoring Kovacic with it the club sent out a message: we’ve got faith in this kid, he’s worthy of it, he’s good. And so the expectation was that he’d play more.

Instead, Kovacic has averaged 46 minutes per game this season. He has made 24 appearances, but on only four occasions has he started and not been substituted. He’s come on off the bench 15 times. Without continuity, match rhythm, a feel for the team, how can Kovacic be expected to find his feet and realise his potential? His stats have involuted.

Kovacic’s WhoScored rating has fallen from 7.26 last season to 6.79 in this. His minutes per accurate pass has risen from 0.9 to 1.6, so too has his minutes per accurate through ball from 205 to 512 and his minutes per key pass from 44.6 to 64. He needs more trust, more understanding and to be allowed to make mistakes. You feel he got that last season under Andrea Stramaccioni, Inter’s former senior youth team coach. But under Mazzarri, not so much.

Tactically, sure, Kovacic needs to learn, particularly when out of possession, but it’s galling to see that when Esteban Cambiasso is out of form, it’s Zdravko Kuzmanovic getting the nod between Fredy Guarin and Hernanes. Inter paid €14m for for Kovacic. He’s still only 19 and if they were to abandon him as a lost cause they’d perhaps risk making the same mistake they made in selling the player Mazzarri claimed he didn’t close down in the Derby d’Italia: a certain Andrea Pirlo. Inter gave up on him too soon in 2001. Interisti hope history won’t repeat itself with Kovacic.

Should Kovacic be starting for Inter? Let us know in the comments below