Halfway later...

And so far so good... despite the tie with Fiorentina, we are still alive in the race with Inter, Napoli, Lazio and Udinese all tied (55 points). In these three games we've managed to completely close the 6 points difference to 3rd.

Now let's hope Napoli screws up!

FORZA INTER!

The long road to Europe

Today we will play Udinese, trying to gain points on the Champions League and on the Europa League. But what lays ahead of us and of our opponents until the season end?

Inter: Udinese (a), Fiorentina (h), Cesena (h), Parma (a), Milan (h), Lazio (a)

Lazio: Novara (a), Lecce (h), Udinese (a), Siena (h), Atalanta (a), Inter (h)

Udinese: Inter (h), Chievo (a), Lazio (h), Cesena (a), Genoa (h), Catania (a)

Roma: Fiorentina (h), Juventus (a), Napoli (h), Chievo (a), Catania (h), Cesena (a)

Napoli: Lecce (a), Novara (h), Roma (a), Palermo (h), Bologna (a), Siena (h)

Considering the remaining games, our road is specially trickier. We will have three hard games out of the remaining six while Lazio, Udinese and Roma will face two and Napoli only one. From these three games, the two direct disputes should be played away, including today's against Udinese.

On the other hand, the 35th matchday should be entertaining and a guarantee that someone will drop points to us as all the other four teams will face one another (Lazio vs Udinese and Roma vs Napoli).

So, my prediction is...

I don't need to say that green means a win, right?

We are the thick dark blue line behind Napoli

Napoli makes it to Champions League and we finish tied with Lazio in Europa League. After a disastrous start with Assperini and the "rise and fall" of Ranieri, I'll be happy enough if Stramaccioni brings us a place in an European tournament. Any one of them.

(Although, looking at individual games, I believe that Napoli should be able to win all games (and Inter 5 out of 6), I've added a fuck-up coefficient because all teams are likely to drop at least a few points in silly matches: I just can't figure out when.)

Today's match is really important!
FORZA INTER

Eto'o x Tevez

Ok, so we have lots of rumbling about Tevez.

Apparently, our current bid seems to be 27 mill to Man City (and 6 mill yearly to Tevez) as opposed to 25 from Milan (Tevez's choice so far) and 35 from PSG.

If he ends up in Inter this means we have sold Eto'o for 28 mill and are now getting Tevez for 27 mill. Seems a replacement for me. So let's compare them both:

Honestly, I won't bother discussing which one is better as clearly they both are world class players. So what can we say? Tevez is 3 years younger and 5 millions cheaper per year (taxes over wages accounted). But he is also unstable as hell: he just went "fuck you Man City, lemme play some golf back in Argentina".

My concern is that he will prove to be a problem in a few years. We sold Eto'o because he was getting older and losing market value, but what can we expect from Tevez in 2-3 years? Nobody in England wants him and he doesn't want to go to France nor places with smaller leagues (Russia, China, etc). Don't think Spanish nor German teams would be willing to take him so that leaves us with the option with him coming back to Latin America.

Corinthians seems a good bet, as his agent is Kia Joorabchian was the president of MSI when the company had an agreement with the club and there were rumours linking them together. Besides their history on buying great yet older and out-of-form Inter players (Ronaldo, Adriano). But Corinthians is not likely to pay 25 million euros on anyone because that is ridiculous money for Brazilian soccer league. So how much can we expect to get?

In the end, we may end up trading up a more expensive athetle who is losing market value for a cheaper troublemaker who is losing market value. Meh, can't tell you if I like it. But I'm sure Donatella Versace doesn't.

I wonder why...

Forza Inter

The beginning of 2012

This post is intended to give a brief overview on how the start of 2012 will be for Inter across all teams and competitions. So we start with:

Serie A

Current standing: 5th place

Next match: Home against Parma on Sat, Jan 7 (20:45 CET) 

Us: After an horrible start in the hands of 343 Gasperini, Ranieri seems to have put this team back on the tracks as we end the year with four straight wins in Serie A. What does it means? Very little. None of the four wins were really impressive (maybe the one against Lecce but hey, playing at home with the weakest team in Serie A...) and none of them were against big teams. On the other hand, the losses against bigger clubs were also not that bad so... 2012 will really be an wildcard. The team is much much better than 6 months ago, but that also doesn't mean much. Our true tests will be the derby and Lazio. I personally have a good feeling that if Sneijder comes back and Nagatomo continues bossing around, we could even dream about the Scudetto. Positive expectancies over the many players that returned or are returning from injuries (Wall, Forlan, Sneijder, Maicon, ...) and someone new on the winter Mercato.

Coppa Italia

Current standing: qualified for round of 8
Next match: Home against Genoa on Thu, Jan 19 (21:00 CET)

Us: ohh, is it now we start playing?

Them: we should have few issues getting past Genoa (as recently seen). After that, things start getting tricky with (probably) Napoli, Udinese and Milan (or Juventus).

Champions League

Current standing: qualified for round of 16 as 1st of group B
Next match: Away against Olympique Marseille on Wed, Feb 22 (20:45 CET)

Us: I cannot say we struggled to qualify as we had secured top spot one game ahead but I was expecting more points in the easiest group of CL.

Them: in the CL they got exactly the expected results: 2 losses to Real Madrid, 2 ties with Ajax and 2 wins against Dinamo Zagreb. On Ligue 1 they stand in 6th, behind Lille (our favorite victim this year). Not the easiest opponent (Basel, Apoel Nicosia) but surely not the hardest (Bayer Leverkussen, Olympique Lyonnais).

Italy: this was a very good season so far for Italy in European leagues after all that mumbling about the decline of Italian calcio. All three teams managed to get trough in CL (including the very dificult task of Napoli to overcome Man. City) and two (Udinese and Lazio) out of four in Europa League.

Campionato Nazionale Primavera

 

Current standing: 4th (one game down)
Next match: Home against Cittadella on Sat, Jan 14

Us: Inter is curently down one match (Home against Varese) and three points below the leader Milan. The team, coached by Andrea Stramaccioni, has some names that we are getting used to hearing more often and that could prove to be valuable assets for first squad in the near future: Di Gennaro (goalkeeper), Alborno (Paraguayan defender), Bianchetti (defender), Bessa (Brazilian midfielder), Romanò (midfielder) and Longo (forward). Honestly, I really think Stramaccioni and his team deserve more attention and I'd like to watch their games, specially in the NextGen Series... but the Primavera team deserves an exclusive post for them, so at this moment I will just say they are doing their job very well.

Coppa Italia Primavera

Current standing: disqualified in the round of 8 (Fiorentina)

NextGen Series

 

Current standing: qualified for round of 8 as 2nd of group D

Next match: Away against Sporting Lisbon on Wed, Jan 25 (only one leg)

Us: After a crushing defeat to Tottenham away on the first round (7-1), Inter has managed to win their games against other group opponents (PSV and Basel) and draw against Tottenham at home. We still have one game left on the group stages but are already qualified for the next round with 10 points in 5 games.

Them: Sporting Lisbon qualified as 1st of group B with five wins against Liverpool, Wolfsburg and Molde and a draw away to Wolfsburg to total 16 points in 6 games.

Italy: Inter is the only Italian team fighting in this competition (4 British, 2 Norwegian (!!!), 2 Dutch, 1 German, 1 Scottish, 1 Spanish (only Barça), 1 Portuguese, 1 French and 1 Turk).

Others

We also lead or at tied for first in ALL other young championships: Juniores Berretti (U18), Allievi Nazionale (U17), Allievi Regionali (U16), Giovanissimi Nazionali (U15), Giovanissimi Regionali (U14) and Giovanissimi Regionali B (U13). Many congratulations for all the youth teams that prove that Inter reigns supreme in Italian calcio.


Happy holidays!

Last matches of 2011

Following our last two wins and the return of important players (Maicon, Forlan and Lucio) it seems that Inter is getting into shape again (not Treble shape but better shape).

Nagatomico saving our ass with a header (?!) also helps

Now we need to start thinking about our future and what to expect of this season.

For Serie A, we'll have three Champions League spots (one trough qualifier) and two Europa League spots. And we also have the Scudetto which seems a distant possibility but cannot be abandoned. Today Inter has 20 points and our main oponents for the Scudetto are Juventus (30 pts) and Milan (28 pts). For the european competitions, we are up against Udinese (30 pts), Lazio (28 pts) and Napoli (21 pts).

My personal feeling is that both Inter and Napoli have strong teams that should be able to make it to the european leagues. This means Udinese or Lazio needs to be dropped out of Serie A spots (unless one of the six teams above grab que Coppa Italia, which is very likely).

In 2011 we have three more matches and none is particularly strong while our oponents have tougher challenges (with my completely random guesses):

And if everything turns out as expected, we should see Inter ending this year in 5th and narrowing the gap to Scudetto (and CL spot) by 2 points.

Pictured: educated guess

FORZA INTER

Home Jersey 11/12

I was taking a look on my recently acquired home 11/12 jersey and it looks so good. Nike really managed to give us two very nice jerseys this year (and the black pre-match jersey is also awesome).

So, which jersey from the last couple of years do you prefer?

06/07: the last one with the smaller logo and white collar?
07/08: the centennary shirt with the new logo and weird "two-color-collar"?
08/09: golden pirelli and blue collar?
09/10: first scudetto centennary and black collar?
10/11: "3D" Biscione's skin?
11/12: black polo collar and thinner stripes?


FORZA INTER!

And we are back

After 19 days without Inter (last game was on nov 2nd, home win againt Lille for the Champions League), we finally see some black and blue action again.

This long period of absence allowed some of our injured players to get back: Julione, Coutinho, Ranocchia and Poli (the two last after some reasonable time away from the fields). On the infirmary remain Nagatomo, Lucio and Maicon (who should come back soon), Forlan (apparently on a long recovery), Viviano (who should be traded for Kucka) and Muntari (I don't really care as long as he's fit to be sold on the next Mercato). 

Also Sneijder missed the game because he got injured during warm-up, which is kinda the opposite as how warm-up should work. According to the broadcasting team, this is the 4th injury pickep-up by Inter players during warm-up this season. So I really hope on the next mercato we'll buy a new midfielder and one or two doctors. Maybe even a physiotherapist if we sell Muntari. Or Zanetti could also play in the doctor position as he has proven able to multitask.

"He's still breathing! Now come back here and lets win this game!"

Enough whining, the starting formation was:

G: Julione

D: Jonathan, Rannochia, Samuel and Zanetti

M: Cambiasso, Deki, Thiago Motta and Coutinho

A: Zarate and Pazzo

The starting defense was really the only option for Ranieri, as we did not only had Lucio, Maicon and Nagatomo injured but also Chivu suspended. Regardless, this defensive formation proved quite good, with Rannochia well recovered, Zanetti doing an excellent job and Jonathan did not let us down (remember he is the 4th or 5th option for his position). When all players are avaiable again (if that ever happens), there will be heavy competition for his place between Chivu, Jonathan, Nagatomo and Zanetti (I hope for the last).

For the midfield, apart from Coutinho, we did not see anything unusual. Zarate + Pazzo up front is the best possible at this moment but the midfield doesn't get any older than Cambi + Deki + Motta. 

At the end of the first, the scoreboard still read 0:0. The defense proved quite solid, the midfield was falling appart and Zarate and Pazzini put one shot at the bar each. In the second half, Zarate was replaced by Alvarez and much to my surprise I saw Inter applying pressure on the midfield and stealing the ball, something rarely seen these days. The first goal came after Alvarez free kick and an offside Motta shot. After some good plays by Coutinho and Alvarez, one finally net us our second goal, in a shot outside the area. The goal from Cagliari came at the 89th minute. Obi replaced Coutinho at 68' and Faraoni in his serie A debut for Jonathan at 87'.

More complete (and better) match reports can be read on goal.com or inter.it. Frisko from Forza Inter Forums posted some very nice photos of the match on his tumblr and we also have some other on inter.it. And the highligths of the match:

Overall, a decent game with some good Inter action in the midfield when we had 5 players cramped in there. No injuries sustained, some playing time for Coutinho and Alvarez (ok, five minutes for Faraoni), three points in serie A and some improvement in the field; exactly what I had been hoping in these last 17 days.

Ps.: while I was writing this, we had two ties with no goals in the other Saturday's matches:  Fiorentina x Milan and Napoli x Lazio. I could not dream of better results as I feel Milan and Napoli are the big contenders for the Scudetto. Lots of pressure from Milan on the last five minutes but Viola did not concede any goal.

Our next matches are:

Champions League: Trabzonspor x Inter on Nov 22nd.

Here we don't really need to win as we have a clear lead on our group as seen below. I'd value more playing time for the younger than a win but nevertheless this should be an "easy" game. As Sneijder is injured, we should see at least Coutinho or Alvarez playing.

http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/index.html

Serie A: Siena x Inter on Nov 27th.

We want three points. Period.

FORZA INTER!