Vampeta, Inter’s meteor. Moratti took it, it turned out to be a flop

Even in the era of spending sprees, when the presidents of Italian football teams went into debt with a smile on their faces and the word “crisis” was banned from every conversation, even then thirty billion lire was still thirty billion, that is, a considerable sum. And if that amount was paid out to buy a player, the following reasoning was triggered: a lot of money equals a great champion. Money became the first yardstick, only to be contradicted by the evidence of the field. In the summer of 2000, the Inter of Massimo Moratti, an extremely generous president, secured the Brazilian Vampeta by paying thirty billion lire to Corinthians. His registered name was Marcos André Batista Santos, born in Nazaré das Farinhas, State of Bahia, on 13 March 1974. The nickname was born from the union between the word “vampire” and the word “capeta”, that is, “devil”. A midfielder by profession, he had won the Brazilian championship with Corinthians and was elected, at the end of 1999, the best player in the country. Indeed: the whole of South America. The best European clubs were competing for him, Cecchi Gori’s Fiorentina had unleashed the observed Giancarlo Antognoni on his trail who had gone so far as to say: “He’s a modern Tardelli”. When Inter burned out the competition, right at the tail end of the transfer market, it was quite logical that the fans gave vent to their dreams. It was Ronaldo the Phenomenon who spoke in positive terms to president Moratti. Il Fenomeno and Vampeta had met years earlier in Holland, at PSV Eindhoven, and had been frequenting the Brazilian Seleçao for some time. Since Ronaldo’s words, in Moratti’s ear, sounded like the Gospel, the deal ended to the satisfaction of the parties. Vampeta signed a four-year contract: four billion per season, the salary. A star salary, in short.