Inter: Salernitana, the crisis and the Champions League against Benfica

From our correspondent Davide Stoppini

April 8th
– Salerno

And it always ends like this with Inter. It ends up that there is never one joy after another, there is never a certainty that it will extend beyond half a week. The complication office for simple things in Salerno has come up with another one. Simone Inzaghi is right when he says “it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a match like this”. He is less right when he explains the result only with missed opportunities. Inter is a machine that no longer works. Who has lost confidence in victory. He has lost the habit of wanting victory. And every time you think you’ve hit rock bottom, there you go dig a little more. A victory in the last six games is a booty that not even in the worst nightmares would have come out. The measure is full. The club is deeply disappointed, almost disconsolate, as well as worried about a Champions League qualification that has become bloody complicated. And these feelings involve all the components. Not just the coach, but the team as well.

Change the technical guide? The company is not convinced that it is the solution to all ills, immediately. Which does not mean that Inzaghi’s position is not under observation. We are not talking about the future here, of course, that is already marked. And the search for a replacement has already begun for weeks. Here we talk from game to game. Tuesday’s away match in Lisbon doesn’t seem to be decisive for the bench. Unless, however, the team collapses, from the point of view of performance and especially the result: in that case, nothing can be excluded. But it will in any case be important for the coach to come out well from Lisbon. Not so much and not only for the European qualification speech of the greats, but above all to add a little faith in the pool of players who have lost it, who don’t believe in it and, if they do, they do it their own way. In a nutshell: would the so-called “shock” of the coach’s exemption really be the right recipe to give this season a last-minute turnaround? In society, the debate has for the moment led more to a no than a yes.

And of course, even yesterday’s match ended up putting the coach in the dock as well, due to those substitutions that greatly worsened the performance against Salernitana in the second half: it’s not the first time this has happened. And then, again: a deficient athletic preparation, for a team that too often lowers its performance from the 60th minute onwards. How to intervene now, in late April? And finally: too many players not in tune with the coach’s choices. Yesterday it was De Vrij’s turn to speak: “I’m not happy with playing so little.” In the beginning it was Gagliardini, with similar concepts. And then there are the submerged voices, including that Lukaku who is certainly not happy with how it has been handled up to now. “But I am convinced that we will qualify for the next Champions League – assured the coach -. Of course, there is disappointment. Now we must be resilient, go beyond this day. But we would have deserved to win, both here in Salerno and against Fiorentina. With this type of performance, the results will come, I have nothing to reproach the players with.”

And maybe that’s not the case. Because they are also under accusation, the footballers. “It’s clear that there’s something wrong, we had 20 clear chances to score,” Inzaghi explained. And again: “The players feel this moment, all the components of Inter want the championship to go like the cups”. The hope is that it really is. Because Lukaku continues to collect eaten goals that rhyme with fools. Because Lautaro is in a phase of involution – 1 goal in his last 9 appearances – and in Salerno he hasn’t been able to do better than to look for a touch in front of Ochoa. Because Correa is simply Correa and Dzeko hasn’t physically been him for weeks. And then Brozovic. Yesterday even Onana. The list is long. But more generally, the sense of precariousness is felt strongly inside the locker room. How many are really sure of staying next season? How many today are called to fight for a place in the Champions League, a competition that perhaps next year will not even play for Inter? Now there’s Lisbon and Roger Schmidt’s extremely dangerous Benfica, a machine that scares everyone in Europe. Here the stimuli come by themselves. Assuming that’s enough.