The coach sent a conciliatory message to the Nerazzurri management to meet after months. “I’ve won 13 games in a row, I’m not relaxing. And no one wants to leave”
Simone Inzaghi has discovered that even Paradise has a “table that is nazzica” – that is, wobbly, unsteady – citing that Roman nature that he has learned to make his own and which has also followed him to Riyadh, where he fights with unnerving traffic. A swarm of cars and horns that envelops everyone, from the highest paid coach in the world to the father of a family.
Him and Inter
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The red sunset marks a strange week where old love glides into Riyadh to knock on the shoulder of a coach who left the much-loved square after losing a Champions League final 5-0. Inzaghi and Inter will be about twenty kilometers apart. The desire of Simone, who contacted the Nerazzurri management personally yesterday, is to say goodbye to old friends. They hadn’t heard from each other for several months. The relaxing gesture is aimed at going to checkers: from what filters, the meeting should take place, even if not in the Nerazzurri’s hotel. Inter are staying at the Four Seasons, inside the Kingdom Center. Al Hilal was supposed to play on the 19th, the day of Bologna-Inter, but the trip was postponed. The conditions are there.
The center
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The Al Hilal sports center is to the south-west, nestled in a residential neighborhood where at nightfall, among the sandy and semi-dark paths illuminated only by the light of the fields, handfuls of boys playing football stand out. Others however, some with the ball and some armed with smartphones, wander around the center looking for selfies with the stars: Theo, Cancelo, Milinkovic, Ruben Neves, Malcom. Inzaghi has been training here for six months and has learned to call it… “Paradise”, the magic word with which he opens his Saudi world of English courses, a second place in the league and the top of the Asian Champions League: “I’ve won 13 games in a row, I’m not relaxing…”, he tells us quickly, once he leaves the facility by car after yesterday’s friendly match with Christophe Galtier’s Neom. The team of a city they have yet to build. “It’s paradise here, I feel great. Nobody wants to leave.” Also because Al Hilal is ready to inaugurate the new sports centre, built at Princess Nourah University, near the airport, in the northern area of the city. The blue and white Eden headquarters will have two training pitches, gym, fitness centre, medical center and so on. Today’s stadium has three stadiums where the youth teams also train. Walking around there you come across dozens of fifteen year olds training a stone’s throw from the adults. When you ask them where Inzaghi’s office is they immediately dictate the way. Those who gravitate towards Al Hilal – press officers and the like – speak a little Italian and welcome you politely. Those who see Simone every day describe him as serene, untied by Italian pressure. Here the enemy, beyond traffic, is “X”, the old Twitter, described as a vent where they target you.
Life in Riyadh
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Simone and his staff live in a “compound” an hour from the sports center (traffic permitting). A residential oasis where there is everything, from supermarkets to gyms, from swimming pools to hotels, built to have everything almost at your fingertips. There are those who brought their families, like him, and those who didn’t. The staff is the usual: the deputy Massimiliano Farris, the right-hand man Fabio Ripert – head coach -, Ferruccio Cerasaro, the match analyst Enrico Allavena, Gianluca Zappalà, Riccardo Rocchini, Claudio Spicciariello and Sebastiano Siviglia, who joined in the summer. He and Inzaghi won the Cup and Super Cup with Lazio in 2009. Even yesterday they left the center last after consulting the data. Al Hilal will play on December 22nd in the Emirates against Sharjah. In the league they are second behind Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr, against whom they will play in January. The club has provided prizes for victories of a certain type and more. Expectations are high but Inzaghi, despite the 25 million net a year, perhaps was tired of acting like Atlas and carrying burdens. Yesterday, after zigzagging in traffic, the Inter world settled down near his home. Who knows if there will be space to greet each other with respect by dusting off a classic “We loved each other so much”.
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