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!

Claudio Ranieri

After quite some time, I’ve finally managed to write again. Fortunately, this has happened partially because I’ve had 2 weeks vacation from work but unfortunately, the other weeks I’ve just worked day and night.

As expected, Gasperini is off and in his place we have Claudio Ranieri.

Ranieri has quite an extensive experience as coach since his debut in 1987: four year in England (Chelsea), four in Spain (Valencia and Atletico de Madrid) and sixteen in Italy (including Juventus, Roma, Napoli among others). That’s 24 years of coaching which is exactly one year under my overall experience of being alive. Much better than Gasperini who had trained sub-20 Juventus and Genoa. He is known for building up solid teams who always almost get the title, leading Chelsea to a 2^nd place in the Champions League in 03/04 and Roma also to 2^nd in Serie A in 09/10.

I think Ranieri is exactly what we need: he’s experienced, both in Serie A as in international leagues and is conservative. He won’t try any crazy shenanigans (343 shenanigans for instance) and that is already a good progress. Additionally he is also Italian, so we have at least someone born in Italy who’ll be on the starting line-up for every game after Julione is back and this is good for increasing local supporters.

FORZA INTER!

Two games later

We are two games into the season and have two losses so far.

Palermo 4 x 3 Inter (Serie A - Week 2)

Goals with lots of goals as expected with Gasperini's 343. Miccoli played brilliantly.

But look who's sad now

 Pros:
- Milito is getting back to shape
- Nagatomo, Obi and specially Jonathan showed some impressive and fast plays on the wings
- Forlan scored his first goal
- Zanetti can be quite solid on defence

Cons:
- Three man defence with 100+ years which made me worry with any counter-attack (how can one team always be outnumbered in defense?)
- Zarate did close to nothing
- Gasperini not using Sneijder as a starter
- Three lost points



Inter 0 x 1 Trabzonspor (Champions League - Group Stage)

I did not watch this as I was at work, but the results scared me. This was the easiest game we will get in the Champions League and we lost it. At home. According to the comments on sites and forums it seemed to be more bad luck than lack of quality, but regardless... we should not lose to Transilvania.

Wait, did I mistype anything?

Pros: Gasperini using 4 men defense!
Cons: We f* lost.



Next match: Inter x Roma (Serie A - Week 3)

After the worst start since 1921/22 with five lost games (see, Inter's writing history!), Gasperini is under a lot of pressure. If we see the 4 men defense again, we should prevail.

Forza Inter!

Yuto Nagatomo is back

He is already back after the dislocated shoulder and on his way to Napoli with the team yesterday according to Sneijder`s twitter (@sneijder101010). The guy is a fighter.

Summer mercato

My first post will be to discuss this summer’s mercato. With many more players coming than leaving the team, much has been argued about quantity over quality. Is this really the case?

To summarize, we have the following changes:

In: Gasperini, Forlan, Zarate, Poli, Alvarez, Nagatomo, Jonathan, Viviano, Castaignos

Out: Leonardo, Eto’o, Santon, Pandev, Rivas, Materazzi, Mariga, Destro

The number of players seems quite even on both sides, but please remember that Rivas, Mariga and Destro did not play for Inter last season (Destro was in Primavera, Mariga already on loan and Rivas just not quite good enough). Materazzi also only played a couple of matches as a sub. On the other hand, only Viviano is injured and shouldn’t play in first squad as he should be a part of Genoa’s squad after winter’s mercato, part of a co-ownership deal with Kucka.

So, apart from the possible loan of Muntari to Galatasaray, some greek team or really whoever is willing to take him, we have 7 “first” squad players (if you consider the young Poli first team, which you should) and 3 “first” squad players leaving (the same for young Santon).

Clearly, the most important transfer is……….

Unfortunately not the one on the right

And also not “the highest paid soccer player in the world” Eto’o, but “former unemployed” Gasperini (yes, the one on the left). Of course, Eto’o transfer was 25 million + 2 bonuses - 1 month of salary + avoided wages + taxes and etc etc while Gasperini’s was free, but please think about the tactical implications of Gasperini and his dreaded three man defense. I’ll go back to this in another post, but Moratti is not happy with the 10 leaked goals in the last 4 games. And you don’t want to make Moratti unhappy.

Specially if you work for him

Back to the players and their business:

OUT

Eto’o: the outstanding Cameroonian forward was one of the key players for Inter last year. He will be deeply missed next season. Pazzini is a great box striker, but we need someone skillful and criative. Forlan is here to step up to this responsability but let's not be too optimistic and think he is at the same level as Eto'o.

Santon: promised to be a renewal for Inter’s ageing defense but it seems Moratti has other plans. At this moment he did not play a relevant role in the team.

Pandev: constantly used more for a lack of a better option than for his quality. With the new signings, we should not miss him.

Rivas: who? I don’t care, glad he is gone as we save on wages.

It's actually this guy, just in case you forgot

Materazzi: sadly he left Inter, but sportsmen get to an age when they can’t really be competitive at top level. You’ll be missed Matrix.

Mariga: he was on loan, he will be on loan. Also couldn’t care less.

Destro: he was part of the deal with Ranocchia and was on loan for Genoa. Destro was a potential for Inter but… we have to sell some players, don’t we?

  
IN

Forlan: the player of the world cup 2010 came to Inter for a low transfer fee and a two years contract due to his age (32). If he can deliver the soccer level he showed in the world cup, please be welcome. If not, at least it was a “not so expensive” shot.

At least his look is perfect to replace the "Lion King"

Zarate: came to replace Pandev as attacking winger but at a higher level of play. He is good but we’ll see what news surround him as he is usually bad mannered. Zarate also has some weird self-taken photos, but I’ll avoid showing anything of this sort here, so you can have someone better looking.

Pictured: not shirtless Zarate

Alvarez: the most expensive purchase of the season (13,5 million), Alvarez has failed to deliver the expected soccer so far. We still hope he’ll improve, but for this price we kinda expected more than shown in the friendlies.

Jonathan: supposed to be the next Maicon, he has just recovered from an injury. We’ll have to wait and see.

Castaignos: the Dutch forward is young and promising. Ditto, wait and see.

Nagatomo: we already had him in the last season but now we’ve acquired the remaining 50%. What else can we say about Nagatomo? He is fantastic and runs like a mad man up and down the field the whole game. I like him a lot and feel that he'll play a very important role in Inter in the upcoming years.

They had to use Super Camera for this photo

Viviano: also supposedly an heir in Inter, but this time to Julio Cesar. He is injured and after recovery should go to Genoa in exchange for Kucka. We don’t need a new goalkeeper (now) anyway.

Poli: Italian midfielder, he is one of the three young promises for the national team (one of the others is Santon). Another one we’ll have to wait and see but we really need new faces in the midfield.

So… for our first squad we lose Eto’o. Pandev and Santon wouldn’t play much with our new players anyway. We gain Forlan, Zarate and Castaignos up front, Nagatomo and Jonathan on the wings, Poli in the midfield and Viviano (just to be traded for Kucka later on).

None of the new players costed us 40 million euros but all of them are at least good enough in positions that Inter needs. Of course I’d rather have Tevez, but the overall option of players is stronger than last year. If only a few of our promises manage to show high level of soccer (cmon Poli and Alvarez!) and we don’t see many injuries in the older (fingers crossed), we can expect a better season.

So does him

Forza Inter!