Sampdoria-Inter, Inzaghi’s match against his friend Stankovic

Simone Inzaghi wants to lengthen his direct competitors for qualifying for the next Champions League. On the day in which Milan and Atalanta won but Roma and Lazio held back, the nerazzurri have the opportunity to strengthen their second place in the standings by winning the 3 points on the Sampdoria field. It’s a great opportunity for the Piacenza coach. Indeed, an opportunity not to be missed because the round of 16 of the Champions League is upon us (it starts again on Wednesday 22 with the first leg against Porto at the San Siro) and going up to +5 on the trio of pursuers could give a slight margin of advantage in sight of the future. For the Nerazzurri coach, the match on the Blucerchiati pitch will not be emotionally trivial: during his career as a footballer, for 6 months in the 2004-05 season, he wore the Sampdoria shirt; in addition, Dejan Stankovic will face his opponent with whom, at Lazio, he celebrated the 1999-2000 championship. Clear, right?

DO YOU REMEMBER GENOA?

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Inzaghi was brought to Sampdoria by Beppe Marotta, who in those years worked for the club of president Riccardo Garrone. In January 2005, after Bazzani was sold, Doria was looking for a striker capable of alternating with Rossini as Flachi’s shoulder and decided to focus on Inzaghi junior, in the capital now on the sidelines despite winning the Italian Cup the previous year. The experience in Liguria, however, proved to be very disappointing for Simone: just 5 appearances, little consideration from the coach Novellino and no goals scored. In fact, he didn’t even have time to settle in when the adventure under the Lantern was already over.

GOIA WITH DEKI

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More beautiful in his mind are the memories of Stankovic, the current coach of Sampdoria, who was his teammate in the tricolor Lazio led by Eriksson. Simone had arrived in Formello in 1999 and had found a very young Stankovic in the dressing room, who had landed the year before from Red Star. Lazio was very strong and, thanks to the goals of the twenty-four-year-old Inzaghi, the quality of the twenty-two-year-old Serbian midfielder and the leadership of champions such as Mancini, Mihajlovic, Nesta, Nedved, Salas and Veron, he managed to steal the Scudetto from Juventus on the last day, beating to Curi from Perugia and… from the rain. That remained Inzaghi’s only tricolor in his playing career. Now he hopes to win one as a coach even if he has already wasted two good opportunities (Lazio 2019-20 were in the lead before the tournament was stopped due to Covid; last season’s Inter were fooled by Milan thanks to the… fatal Bologna) and in this 2022-23 the gap from Napoli (-16, even with one game played less) is irrecoverable.

SECOND PLACE

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Tonight, as happened at the end of October, in the first leg at San Siro, Inzaghi and Stankovic will embrace each other, but then for 90 minutes they won’t be able to give each other gifts of any kind. Deki must try to give a strong signal against a big one to get closer to the fourth from bottom place of Spezia; Simone must take advantage of the setbacks of the Romans and not lose ground compared to Milan and Atalanta. With the Scudetto now gone and the Italian Super Cup on the bulletin board, judgment on the ex Lazio coach’s second Nerazzurri season will be given by the last three and a half months. In particular from the placement in the championship (qualification in the Champions League is considered the minimum wage by the club, but it is necessary not to worsen last year’s second place) and from the outcome of the Italian Cup, which can be won as long as you pass the double semi-final against Juventus. The round of 16 of the Champions League, on the other hand, are… a kind of joker because Porto are more within reach opponents than the others who could have come out of Nyon’s urn, but Inter start on an equal footing with the Portuguese. They are no longer strong, nor favorites, also because the return will be in Porto. However, there will be another 10 days to tune in to the 2022-23 Champions League, in which Saturday’s match at San Siro with Udinese is also on the calendar. The present is the match against Sampdoria, a confrontation that doesn’t leave you calm and not just for… sentimental reasons.

MEDIUM-SMALL AND GOALS

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In this 2023, in fact, Inter dropped 5 points against Monza (2-2) and Empoli (0-1 at San Siro). Without these missteps, the race for the Italian flag would still have been on. Considering that there was obvious suffering both to beat Hellas and Cremonese and to pass to the quarterfinals of the Italian Cup in the one-off match against Parma, there is enough to talk about the syndrome of… medium-small. We’ll see if tonight, called to play against a Samp that will inevitably wait and restart, Brozovic and his teammates will avoid unpleasant surprises. Away precedents are not encouraging, at least when goals conceded: if at San Siro the Nerazzurri have the best defense of the tournament together with Roma (just 5 goals conceded), away they are… a sieve and the Handanovic duo Onana collected the ball an impressive 21 times in the back of the net. A trend reversal is needed after Inter’s goal has never remained unbeaten in the first 10 away matches in Serie A. A series that began after the victory on 3 April 2022 in Turin against Juventus and reached 14 matches. Too many, way too many.