Inter, the line-up against Turin: the starters out, three Primavera players in

A bit like in the second chapter of the saga Mission: Impossible, handling the Inter players in these scarce two weeks is as delicate as carrying around the Chimera virus or the Bellerophon antidote. A stumble or a slip and you risk compromising the near future in the time of a breath. Thus, in fact, Simone Inzaghi prefers to leave the owners in the Appiano Gentile showcase to work hard without taking risks, already setting June 10 as their goal: the Champions League final in Istanbul against Manchester City, of course. If the advantages over the English can be counted on the fingers of half a hand, one of these is the clear head in the fortnightly journey towards the match on Turkish soil: on Saturday at 4pm the Citizens will play the FA Cup final in the derby against Manchester United , while the Nerazzurri coach at 18.30 will leave Turin in the hands of the second lines and the young players of the Primavera.

Targeted revolution

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If there weren’t any injured players, Inzaghi would therefore have the formation already made for the away game on the last day of the championship, irrelevant for Inter given the qualification for the next Champions League already in the pocket. However, Joaquin Correa and Henrikh Mkhitaryan will not be called up and Milan Skriniar is racing against time to recover for Istanbul and certainly will not be risked from the first minute. Danilo D’Ambrosio, however, is to be evaluated. Going to exclusion, however, some pieces of the puzzle can already be placed in their place. The captain’s armband will go, for example, to Samir Handanovic in goal, who will have Stefan De Vrij in front of him in central defence. On the exteriors there will be Raoul Bellanova and Robin Gosens, with Kristjan Asllani in the control room. Up front one of the two strikers will be Edin Dzeko or Romelu Lukaku, probably whoever in Inzaghi’s mind won’t start from the start in Istanbul: at the moment the Bosnian seems to have an “advantage” against Turin, if only for having already rested with Atalanta. A midfielder, then, will be Roberto Gagliardini returning from suspension.

Make way for young people

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Proceeding again with exclusion and considering D’Ambrosio recoverable, there are three boxes still vacant and not by chance they are precisely those of Skriniar, Mkhitaryan and Correa. Space therefore for the talents coming out of Cristian Chivu’s Primavera, considering however that those integrated most often by Inzaghi are all at the Under-20 World Cup in Argentina: Valentin Carboni with the hosts, plus Mattia Zanotti, Alessandro Fontanarosa and Francesco Pio Esposito in the national team Italian. Argentina-Nigeria and England-Italy will be played simultaneously at 11pm on Wednesday (Italian time): even in the event of an unfortunate and undesirable elimination in the round of 16, it is unlikely that the four players will be ready over the weekend for a starting position in Serie A between late return, travel fatigue and time difference. The clues about the three missing profiles can therefore be taken from Inzaghi’s call-ups: the midfielder’s position could, for example, be occupied by Ebenezer Akinsanmiro more than by Aleksandar Stankovic, both for reasons of role and for what he has already been close to making his debut against Napoli (and then also called for the Italian Cup final against Fiorentina and for Inter-Atalanta). Without Esposito, it could be Dennis Curatolo in attack, 6 goals of the season with Chivu and 5 call-ups with Inzaghi, including last Saturday’s. Big doubts for the third defender – and without D’Ambrosio we would need two -, because the only centre-back so far called up to the first team is Fontanarosa (never on the pitch in the 10 times he’s finished in the squad) which is precisely in the Under-20 World Cup After him, the two defenders most present with Chivu are Sheriff Kassama and Giacomo Stabile, at this point strong suspects in addition to Stefano DI Pentima, already called up on Saturday.