Horncastle: Back to the future as AS Roma host Inter Milan in crucial Serie A tie
In the home dug out will be Luciano Spalletti. In the away one Roberto Mancini. They’re back at Roma and Inter respectively and memories of how they shared the spoils between themselves from 2006 and 2008 burst in splashes of grey like the water on banks of the Tiber. Inter dominated in the immediate post Calciopoli Serie A. But Roma challenged them. They were the only ones to take up the fight.
Inter were what they call in Italy a corazzata. A battleship. Juventus were gone, relegated to Serie B and Inter took no pity on them whatsoever, only pleasure. Bailiffs in what they perceived to be a moral bankruptcy, they removed Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Patrick Vieira from Turin and made them their own. Inter felt it was their time. Cheated for years, in their opinion, they went about their football and their business as though making up for lost time.
The playing field had been levelled. Except for everyone else it felt like Serie A was more disproportionate than ever. Roma, crippled by debt after chasing and realising their Scudetto dream, could no longer buy the Batistutas and the Cassanos. A transfer embargo had been imposed after irregularities were found in the signing of Philippe Mexes. They had flirted with relegation in the season before Spalletti’s appointment, going through four different managers. Not since AD 69 when Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian all had turns as Emperors had the Eternal City known such turmoil.
The first year of the new normal ended with Inter winning the league by 22 points, a record margin that was exacerbated by the deductions to Milan and Fiorentina. The title was wrapped up in April, the earliest it has ever been in the history of Serie A. Roma were runners’ up, admittedly a red and yellow dot in Inter’s rearview mirror. But already they had hinted at maybe running the champions closer. Not with spending power. In fact, Inter were about to begin a summer tradition of olive picking Roma’s best players: first Cristian Chivu and later Amantino Mancini.
The only way of competing with them was through ideas and, by accident rather than design, Spalletti had one. Ravaged by injury before a trip to Sampdoria, he fielded a strikerless 4-6-0 with Francesco Totti as a False 9. Opponents just didn’t know how to handle it and Roma went on a record-breaking 11-game winning streak. After starting the 2006-07 campaign indifferently they finished strongly. Totti ended the season as Capocannoniere with 26 goals and Roma beat Inter in the Coppa Italia final, the highlight being a quite incredible 6-2 win in the first leg at the Olimpico.
It was Roma’s first Coppa since the days of Berthold and Völler in 1991. Beauty prevailed. The Beast did not. But could it over an entire season? For 54 minutes on the final day of the 2007-08 season, it really looked like it might. Roma were winning in Catania. Inter were drawing in Parma. For anoretta - a little hour - Spalletti’s players led the league. Then Zlatan came off the bench at the Tardini, won the game and the title for them. It was the first of a series of near misses that Roma would experience. The same emotions would be felt under Claudio Ranieri and Rudi Garcia too. In consolation Roma were able to retain the Coppa with another win against Inter.
It’s the last piece of silverware they won. So much has changed in the meantime. The clubs have been taken over. They now have foreign owners. Javier Zanetti is Inter’s vice-president. Roma would like Totti behind a desk only he wishes to carry on playing and could be reunited with Ranieri at Leicester next season. Totti, Maicon and Daniele De Rossi are the only survivors of that rivalry between 2006 and 2010.
Meanwhile Spalletti is back with unfinished business. The Scudetto is a long shot but an eight-game winning streak has Juventus and Napoli looking over their shoulders. It keeps both of them on their toes. “Third is our minimum objective,” Spalletti said on Friday. For Inter it’s the maximum. A win this weekend would bring them within two points of Roma. But the Nerazzurri travel to the capital without top scorer Mauro Icardi and the suspended Rodrigo Palacio. Eder is yet to score since joining the club in January while Steven Jovetic is either ‘injured’ or out in the cold.
Writing off Inter would be a mistake Roma would be advised not to make. Remember they went to San Siro as league leaders on Halloween. Icardi was dropped and yet Roma still lost 1-0. Goalkeeper Samir Handanovic was immense that night. Roma, however, are a completely different proposition under Spalletti to what they had become in the final days of Garcia.
So fire up the DeLorean and get ready. It’s time to go back to the future.
James Horncastle @JamesHorncastle
