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HORNCASTLE Why Inter can be Juventus' challenger
Elegant and charming, Mancini could often be caustic as well. A man of high standards, who appears to be very high maintenance as well, it’s fair to say he has never given the impression of being the easiest person to work with either as a player or manager, whether it’s demanding seven or eight new players from the board or telling one of his strikers “I could have scored that.”
While Mancini cut a jaded figure by the end of his second spell at the club, Frank de Boer, by contrast, seems like a breath of fresh air and the atmosphere around Inter is reinvigorated. He seems pleased to be there. Others within the club do as well. Anyone with a past at Ajax, perhaps with the exception of de Boer’s old manager Louis van Gaal, tends to be welcomed with hopeful expectation in large part because of their association with a club that is so strongly identified with attractive, attacking football. Naturally there’s a wish for them to bring it with them and pass it on.
When Inter did win last season they won ugly. Eleven of their victories finished 1-0. In fact, Inter were the only team in Europe’s top five leagues to win 20 games despite scoring only 50 goals. The football should at the very least be more enjoyable to watch under de Boer, not of course that Interisti mind all that much as long as they are winning. After all, that was the case under Mancini and harking further back Jose Mourinho, Giovanni Trapattoni and Helenio Herrera before him.
It’s up to de Boer to ensure this different vibe around Inter lasts beyond the newness. Novelty is is finite. It will soon wear off. “There is always a demand for new,” Arsène Wenger opined last week, “but new is just new… What is new makes news. But apart from that, it makes noise. But the noise is not necessarily always quality.”
Time will tell. De Boer’s optimism about Inter’s prospects of at least making Juventus sweat to retain the Scudetto contrasts with the weary realism espoused by some of his colleagues in Serie A. To every person out there who admires his bravery, it’s not difficult to imagine others simultaneously writing him off as naive for declaring, in relation to Juventus, that “there are no unbeatable teams. At times things change,” particularly after all the fine shopping the Old Lady has done this summer.
Still, the confidence around Inter is justifiable at least in terms of their chances of returning to the Champions League and even emerging as the best of the rest ahead of Roma and Napoli, teams that are more settled and further along in getting to where they want to go. Inter competed unexpectedly well for the first half of last season. They were a bit fortunate to win their first five games - something they hadn’t done since Herrera’s time in the 60s - but still hung on in there until the start of the New Year only to implode and blow their chance of being crowned winter champions on the final day of the girone d’andata.
What got them that far was an ironclad defence. However, Jeison Murillo’s catastrophic decline in form and Mancini’s attempts to make Inter more expansive contributed to its meltdown. Twelve of Inter’s 15 clean sheets last season came in the first half of the season. It remains to be seen if they can be that watertight again. New left-back Caner Erkin does not appear an obvious upgrade on Yuto Nagatomo and understandably Interisti are asking: Would the real Jeison Murillo please stand up? Can he actually recover and hit the same heights again he did through last autumn and spring?
What is beyond any doubt is the status of goalkeeper Samir Handanovic and centre-back Miranda as top class in their respective positions. Inter do have a lot more talent than people give them credit for. By the end of the window they could have a midfield of Ever Banega, Geoffrey Kondogbia and Joao Mario. On paper that looks pretty damn strong. Up front, de Boer can already call upon a trident featuring Ivan Perisic, Antonio Candreva and captain Mauro Icardi. Not bad, is it?
Holes are getting filled. Banega is the architect Inter have been missing in midfield since Esteban Cambiasso left. Joao Mario is a dynamic all-rounder. Kondogbia should be better for a year in Italy and could come good under a new manager with a fresh approach. Candreva is an excellent crosser and can stretch the play like Perisic who, incidentally, had a fine Euros. Crucially, as it stands, Icardi is still at the club.
Beyond the fact Inter’s captain is only 23 and finished as the league’s Capocannoniere a year ago and had the highest conversion rate last season [30.8%], there is a symbolism to keeping him at the club this summer that is by no means insignificant. Napoli lost Gonzalo Higuain to Juventus. Roma lost Miralem Pjanic to them as well. Inter, meanwhile, have kept their best player despite his wife agitating for a new contract. They have also resisted serious bids from Napoli to bring him to the San Paolo as Higuain’s replacement.
Inter’s new Chinese owners, Suning, have empowered the club with the financial wherewithal to hold onto their major difference makers and add more with a bold strategy even within the confines of the voluntary agreement struck with UEFA by the previous regime regarding FFP. Kondogbia was the third biggest signing in Inter’s history a year ago. Joao Mario will likely become the most expensive ever. “Moratti is the model that inspires us,” Suning CEO Zhang Jindong announced at the completion of the takeover, hinting at a return to the golden days of big spending. A measure of their Suning’s ambition can be found in their investment in Jiangsu, the company’s other club, who bought Ramires and Alex Teixeira in January for €78m.
“[This year] we want to win the Scudetto and the Europa League,” Zhang declared bullishly. “Only that way can we get back to the top in world football. The objective is to play in the Champions League.” Knocking Juventus off their perch still seems like a long shot frankly. “They’ve got big names, yes,” de Boer told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “But we don’t yet know if the big names will know how to be a team.”
It seems he doesn’t yet know the spirit and the drive within that Juventus dressing room, as exemplified by the core of Gigi Buffon, the BBC and Claudio Marchisio. Besides the same reservation could be held about Inter, much more so, in fact, particularly after last season. Make no mistake Juventus remain the undisputed No.1. But are Inter really the best of the rest? Roma and Napoli will no doubt have something to say about that, starting this weekend.
James Horncastle, @JamesHorncastle
