Inter crisis: Inzaghi guilty, but not only him. A comment by DiCaro

The news that Inter is considering giving players an award if they manage to reach the Champions League at the end of the season demonstrates three things: what a difficult moment the team is in today; what tremendous fear the club has of not reaching the minimum seasonal goal (which guarantees the highest income); that to motivate already overpaid players, another economic bonus is needed. From whatever point you read it, the probable choice, which the company hopes will be successful, remains a defeat. And in the end, however it goes, it would be better to make a large clean sweep within a group that has shown little attachment to the shirt and played a very disappointing championship and a two-faced year. It has a certain effect to give trenchant judgments today, when the season could be exciting with the victory of the Champions League, a trophy that Inter and Italy have been missing since 2010, the year of Mourinho’s Treble.

champions

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But it is precisely Inter’s positive and convincing progress in the Champions League (and in the Italian Cup), in line with the value of the squad and its very high wage bill (the second after Juve), that makes the path in the league unacceptable and highlights the difference in attitude, motivations and commitment of the group according to the competitions. For this reason, albeit with different responsibilities, no one at Inter can define himself as exempt from responsibility, neither the coach, nor the players, nor the club.

inzaghi

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Let’s start with the coach: Simone Inzaghi’s fate appears sealed. For some months, trust in him has dropped to the point of almost everyone believing him to be a “dead man walking”. He is credited with a poor ability to keep tension high in the team, to live on flare-ups and not on continuity, of not having valued the squad, of not having made the most of various players, of having been cradled on some positive results, instead of raising the bar. Last year he was considered the most responsible for the Scudetto thrown away by Inter, nevertheless the trust in him was confirmed so much as to extend his contract this year. A hasty and difficult to understand choice. In the championship, however, one defeat after another, Inzaghi has begun to walk a tightrope. If it hasn’t been changed during the year, it has also been due to a lack of alternatives. The fluctuating trend between the championship and the cup was initially attributed to the coach’s difficulty in keeping everyone’s concentration and motivation high. But then, slowly, an even worse doubt arose: that victories or defeats no longer depend much on Inzaghi, but that the players are the balance of everything. Thus diminishing both the merits and demerits of Simone, who in any case is no longer considered a coach by Inter but who (perhaps…) could still save the bench in the event of a Champions League victory.

not just simon

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From these columns and in unsuspecting times we have often been critical of Inzaghi, always judging him for results and performances and never from a human point of view, considering him to be a man who is always correct and often elegant even in the face of the most heated criticism. Let’s not change our opinion now that so many others accuse him, but it doesn’t seem right to point the finger only at Simone. The team has huge faults this season. The bad feeling is that he decides to play only when he wants. You can’t understand otherwise how you can win 2-0 away from home with Benfica and before and after putting together four defeats and a draw in the league. And lose the last three games at home. Collective and individual embarrassing performances, wrong attitudes, blunders. A victory in the Champions League would obviously make us forget a lot, but not everything. These players, many of whom won the Scudetto two years ago, have not shown themselves at Inter. And we fear that the fragility of Inzaghi’s position has not prompted them to give more. Simone’s umbrella, the culprit par excellence, covered even those who didn’t deserve it.

leadership

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Finally, the president and managers: they had the merit of setting up a squad of great quality and quantity, despite the economic problems. Inter is on paper the strongest team in the league. However, the choice to renew Inzaghi’s contract remains incomprehensible, except during the season to unload him, despite the facade words. It’s not the length of a contract that locks down a coach: it’s the trust of the club, when it falters, players sniff the air and don’t always react as they should… During the year there were many summits and meetings of senior management with coach and team, but the results have not been seen. Words, calls, warnings, threats of transfers that did not have the desired effect, certifying the lack of grip even of the managers on the team. This article, with three open competitions, could turn out to be waste paper in June. We wish it to Inter and its fans who dream of the Champions League and don’t deserve any more humiliations in the league.