Inter Milan News Archives

The North East of England is often described as a ‘football hotbed’ – an area that is widely accepted to be rich in the culture, tradition and passion of the beautiful game. Three big clubs, hundreds of thousands of loyal supporters and a breeding ground for talent through the eras, there can’t be many parts of the world that top Tyneside, Wearside and the Tees on the hotbed thermometer ?

Well of course there are. Bobby Charlton, Alan Shearer and Paul Gascoigne apart, how many world class players has the ‘hotbed’ produced ? And how many trophies have their teams won on a national or international stage ?

I know it’s not all about glory and home grown talent, but I can make a case for ten diverse areas on this planet all being bigger hotbeds than the North East (population: 2,515,442):

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Today’s transfer roundup starts up as the last one did, so Arsenal fans, feel free to jump a couple of paragraphs.

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Three weeks ago, at the end of the 3-2 match lost to Juventus (Matchday 33) Milan manager Carlo Ancelotti had declared: “Our objective for the rest of the season, in order to qualify for Champions League, will be to win all of our next 5 matches“. With the important fixture vs. Inter in the Rossoneri’s calendar, this was much easier said than done… but what do you know? AC Milan might just have achieved their objective.

To quote Gazzetta, some people had already nicknamed this title ‘The Scudetto of Hardships’ (more or less a translation of Lo Scudetto della fatica), and that may be why Inter continue to make things harder for them. 2 years and 18 days since their last derby victory, AC Milan have reclaimed the “Derby della Madonnina” and made a key step towards Champions League qualification. Indeed with the concurrent loss of Fiorentina at Cagliari, the Rossoneri now find themselves in 4^th spot with a 1-point advantage over La Viola. In other words: their destiny is entirely in their own hands.

As for Inter well… it will take nothing short of a Roman miracle for the Nerazzurri to lose their grip on the Scudetto (on account of their head-to-head record with AS Roma, a win to Siena next week will effectively seal the deal for Roberto Mancini’s team), but today’s loss is certainly very sour. Is it a coincidence that when Filippo Inzaghi scores on Inter (today was the 4^th time it happened), Il Diavolo always ends up victorious?
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Both Internazionale and Milan have balked at Barcelona’s asking price for the former World Player of the Year - supposedly valued at 30 million Euros by the Catalan club whereas the Italians are rumoured to offering 16-20 million euros (reasonable, if you factor in that he is ‘damaged goods’ and commands high wages).

However, Ronaldinho is more than just a player. According to Forbes.com he is the second richest footballer (Goldenballs has the #1 position locked in again) and his brand value, regardless of his injuries and form, is high enough for a club to throw a few extra million Barcelona’s way.

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According to Forbes.com Manchester United have been valued at $1.8 billion, ahead of the club traditionally known as the richest club in football (Real Madrid, $1.285 billion) and their chief domestic rivals Arsenal ($1.2 billion), Liverpool ($1.05 billion) and Chelsea ($764 million).

Have fun sorting the lists according to different criteria. Here are some highlights:

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Steve Amoia returns with his preview of Week 35 in the Serie A - with a look at Adriana Lima, transfer rumours involving Milan and highlights from last weekend in Italy.

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Here’s a list of the top scorers in this year’s Champions League (so far), plus their career stats for the Champions League:

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Quotes of the Week in Italian Calcio

You didn’t know that Salma likes Italian football? Or can quote the great masters of literature? Do you really care?

“I wouldn’t repeat the same gesture that cost me a five-game ban. It was a big mistake, especially for the example that I set the children who were watching.” — Antonio Cassano of Sampdoria

Were the children he was talking about one of the jewels of Bari Vecchia? Maybe he needs to tell himself “Vai a fan****!” the next time a Cassanate is on the horizon? Can a referee card him for that? “Mister Collina, the player was cursing himself. Repeatedly. Then he threw his shirt at himself. Should we fine him? No, his behavior has improved markedly. We should buy him another shirt, and call Donadoni…”

“Inter have some tough games coming up and we have been chasing them for two years.” — Daniele De Rossi of AS Roma. Speaking of chasing, some supporters behind the goal are still looking for the spot kick he sailed over Van Der Sar.

“If I have to analyse this game, then I say Palermo had three shots on goal and Gigi Buffon did not make a single save.” — Claudio Ranieri of Juventus

Mister Ranieri with his usual concise, creative, and confounding analysis. Maybe the Americans should hire him for political commentary. “Hillary sounds like Caesar’s wife. Barack sounds like Caligula. John sounds like Mr. Abramovich.”

“Walter will do well because he has lost the short fuse of a player and reasons like a Coach. To be honest, he has surprised me. I remembered him as being brash and also a loudmouth. The day that I left Inter, I didn’t think that he would have a future as a Coach.” — Giovanni Trapattoni of Red Bull Salzburg and soon to be manager of Eire. He was also born on 17 March.

Speaking of short fuses, Mister Trap had a famous video during his time with Bayern Munich. Walter Zenga must have studied that before his first game on the Catania bench. Brash and a loudmouth? Walter? A former goalkeeper? A Northern Italian?

Quotes courtesy of Football Italia.

Video Highlights

Image courtesy of Goalvideoz. Please click the image to view a video highlights menu after the game.

Image courtesy of Serie A TV. Please click the image for free video previews and selected clips after the games.

Giornata/Week 34:

For live scores during the games, please click here.

For an ESPN Matchtracker of Serie A games, please click here.

For a live game tracker called Match View, in Italian, from the Gazzetta dello Sport, which has very detailed statistics and graphical displays, please click here. You may have to click on the number of the week to see a full fixture list.

Saturday, 19 April

AS Roma x Livorno at 1300 GMT.
Fiorentina x Palermo at 1830.

Sunday, 20 April

Cagliari x Empoli: A relegation derby at 1300 GMT.
Siena x Genoa
Atalanta x Juventus
Catania x Lazio
Parma x Napoli
AC Milan x Reggina
Sampdoria x Udinese
Torino x Internazionale at 1830.

For more news in English about Italian football, please visit mCalcio.

For a live radio stream (subject to availability) from RAI, please click here.

If you are new to calcio and the Italian language, I wrote an article called “Soccer Terminology in the Mother Tongue.” Unfortunately, you will not learn the actual chants (i cori) from the stadiums, useful terms to describe rival players and fans (gli avversari), or how to compliment your favorite referee (l’arbitro). For those, you will need to make a visit to bella Italia…

Place your predictions below and may Gerry McDonnell grace us with his odds. And may Salma grace you with, well, I will leave that to your imaginations.

“I could never die on Sunday. Then I would miss my Italian football.”

Steve Amoia is a featured author on Soccerlens. He is the author and editor of World Football Commentaries, and also writes for Keeper Skool.

This can be a difficult time of the season for strong recommendations as title hopes evaporate; teams get lost in mid-table mediocrity with little to play for and those resigned to their fate fail to perform to expectation.

But there are some interesting clashes this weekend as in Serie A six of the top seven take each other on. In the Premier League, Arsenal’s season will finish early unless they can win at Old Trafford. There’s much to be decided at the bottom of the Bundesliga as any three from five could still be relegated and two of them meet this weekend. Ligue 1 is even less defined as only six points separates 12th from 19th and four of the bottom five have the same number of points. Only in Spain could nearly everything top and bottom of the table be resolved this weekend.

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At the beginning of the season, no one expected Juventus to achieve UCL qualification. All the critics (some of them were even Juve fans!!) predicted that La Vecchia Signora would only manage the UEFA Cup.

But they’ve been proven wrong. The question is: can the bianconeri rise from the mist and mount a season-ending title surge against an increasing Roma and a declining Inter? Let’s take a look at the stats:

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Update: Jose Mourinho has denied any meeting with Inter. In an official statement:

“I say categorically that it is not true that I went to Milan, that I met with Massimo Moratti (the Inter president), who I do not have the pleasure of knowing personally.

It is false to say that I am on the point of signing a contract with Inter Milan.”

So much for that…

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Someone played a bad joke on Inter Saturday night, and Roberto Mancini wasn’t laughing. And who can blame him? Juventus waited until the return leg of the Derby d’Italia to come back to greatness: true greatness, the kind that makes you feel part of European football’s Elite.

The Evidence? The players. From Gianluigi Buffon (proving once again why he’s considered to be the best goalkeeper on Earth) through to Giorgio Chiellini (who is slowly achieving superstar status as a center-back) and Mauro Camoranesi (Juve just can’t do without him), all the way to David Trezeguet (another vital goal to maintain the lead of the Serie A scoring charts), every man on Claudio Ranieri’s team was almost perfect. The only one coming a little bit short: Alessandro Del Piero, failing to finish two key 3-0 chances that’d have put the game on ice for the Bianconeri, but the author of an otherwise A+ performance.

On Saturday night, in a 58,000 spectactor-laden Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, the Bianconeri achieved what no other Serie A team has managed to do this season: beat Inter Milan at home, in the temple of Italian football.
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To quote Guardian blogger Paolo Baldini, this fixture represents a match between “the Proud and the Usurpers; the Honest against the Defrauded; the Champions against the… eh… actual Champions. Don’t let those pretenders from AC Milan or Roma tell you otherwise - from the moment Juventus sealed promotion back to the top flight […] Italy has been counting down towards one game, and one game only“.

After the first round last November, which ended 1-1 draw at the Stadio Olimpico of Turin, the Derby d’Italia between Juventus and Internazionale is back. Saturday, the Stadio Giuseppe Meazza of Milan will be the host to one of the most intense derby matches in Italy. Two teams not from the same city but who are very much bitter rivals, and also have the highest goals total in Serie A history.

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I write a lot about the English Championship and in that league the top four, Stoke City, Bristol City, Watford and West Brom, are all doing their level best not to get automatic promotion. Only Stoke have won in their last two games, and that is one in five for them. The rest of the teams can’t buy a win. Despite that, the chasing pack are making no inroads because they can’t win either.

I thought this was because it was a tough league and there were no outstanding teams in it. However, a glance around the top leagues in Europe will show that teams at the top everywhere are trying not to win their leagues.

What is going on? Worldwide corruption? Teams unable to handle the pressure?

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“See I was supposed to be a footballer
but they kept pickin’ the other kid
who was a foot taller
I got lazy and less enthusiastic
I stopped trainin’ and turning up to matches
started sabotaging the manager’s tactics
but when I did play I used to score hat-tricks
then I gave up
now I’m in the music biz
and I wont ever let my laziness ruin this” (Kano – 9 to 5)

“I appreciate football because without football I wouldn’t have anything else” (Ince, interview with The Independent, 1998)

“I love tackling, love it. It’s better than sex”
(Ince in an interview from England’s World Cup training camp in France 1998)

In my article on Tony Mowbray, I noted that certain images of the West Brom manager during his ‘Boro days have crystallized in time to encapsulate a certain experience of the triumph of a working class club when sailing through rocky economic seas. Paul Ince is another such figure: more than a player, Ince is an icon. And it is indeed this iconic status that can be found both at the source of Ince’s considerable success and the root of the series of outlandish faux-pas that have plagued his career.

Ince’s story, like that of a number of footballers, presents an alternating amalgam of free-fall and tragic resistance in the face of significant social and economical adversity; his plot is that of the Hollywood protagonist teeter-tottering between good and evil and ending up going in for both.
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In French they would say: “Sortie par la petite porte” (exit through the small door). The hypothetical Grande Inter who has been utterly dominating the Serie A for the past 3 seasons will, for another year, remain but only a mirage in European context: an unachieved dream which the millions of Nerazzurri fans will look at nostalgically from afar, as they enjoy the success of yet another domestic league Scudetto at the end of the year. Wondering: what could have been…

Today, Inter Milan were simply insufficient. Insufficient to overturn a two-goal deficit from the first leg, insufficient (for their most important match of the year) at maintaining the entirety of their troops focused, insufficient at challenging the Reds of Liverpool. Inter manager Roberto Mancini had said this needed to be a “perfect night” and frankly, had the Nerazzurri capitalized on a few of their enormous first half chances, it might very well have been. In the end however, the goal by Fernando Torres brought an end to the Italian dreams of perfection, and together with the card shown to Nicolas Burdisso, contributed in painting this Milan night with colours of very bright Red.
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Lurking crisis shadows begone. Inter Milan are back on the winning track, obtaining their first victory after 3 winless matches in the Serie A (4 if you count their little mishap at Anfield two weeks ago), and making the party all the more special is the celebration for the Nerazzurri’s 100 years anniversary, or “Il Centenario” as they call it back in Milan (by the way, La Repubblica and La Gazzetta dello Sport have great websites dedicated to that, if you can read Italian).

In a San Siro stadium full of old Nerazzurri glories and the mind already wandering to Tuesday’s match vs. Liverpool, one might have foreseen that maintaining concentration wasn’t going to be easy for Inter today. However Mancini’s men rallied together, reversed their negative trend against a determined Reggina side, and brought home the win thanks to the goals by Ibrahimovic and Burdisso… with a little help from the referee. It’s reassuring to notice everything is still proceeding as ‘normal’ in the Serie A.

Meanwhile, Juventus have finally brought an end to their streak of 3 winless consecutive games, and played a great match of strong personality and tactical cohesion against Genoa, a match also highlighting the top-notch performance of an absolutely storming Zdenek Grygera.

Bringing you the latest news from the Italy, mCalcio.com’s Marco Pantanella looks at Serie A’s evening matches from the week-end.

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“We are top of the Premier League and through to the quarter-finals of the Champions League. We beat the holders at home, so why can’t we win them both?” The words of an understandably excited Cesc Fabrigas after Arsenal’s wonderful victory in the San Siro.

Arsenal are far from the only team looking to do a League and European double this season. Is it likely, or even possible, to win both? If it is, which teams are in pole position?

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It finally happened. After 31 straight matches without a loss, Inter were eventually forced raise the white flag on Sunday, courtesy of a near-perfect Napoli team galvanized by the atmosphere of their home stadium. Seems hard to believe doesn’t it? The Nerazzurri had not lost a game since April 18^th 2007 (a 3-1 home loss at the hands of Roma) but from then on, Mancini’s boys had accumulated a record of 23 wins and 8 draws, going on to win the 15^th Scudetto of their history. Until today, it seemed as if nº16 was pretty much a done deal, but Napoli had other plans.

Meanwhile, things have gone from bad to worse at Juve: after losing against Reggina and tying the important derby vs. Torino, the Bianconeri suffered a come-from-behind victory at the hands of archrivals Fiorentina.

Bringing you the latest news from the Italy, mCalcio.com’s Marco Pantanella looks at Serie A’s two important matches from Sunday.

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You know, if there is someone who I’ve always had the utmost respect for, throughout all these winless years (let’s face it, until 2006 Inter Milan hadn’t won squat for the past two decades, save for a measley UEFA Cup in 1998), it’s Javier Zanetti. He’s been the heart of the Nerazzurri ever since he transferred from Banfield in 1995, and Wednesday he had the occasion to prove it yet again, by saving his team from their first Serie A loss of the season. Not only that, but losing against Roma would have meant the onset of a mini-crisis among Inter ranks, especially after the draw vs. Sampdoria and the Liverpool catastrophe.

Speaking of Roma though, yesterday night proved one thing: 17 matches after the Supercoppa Italiana and 10 months after their 3-1 away victory at Giuseppe Meazza, if there’s one team Inter have a tough time tackling it’s the Giallorossi.

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With the competition now reaching its vital playoff stage, things didn’t debut in quite the same way for the three Italian teams still in European contention. Inter Milan, Roma, and AC Milan shared the three thirds that make a whole in football: a loss, a win, and a draw.

Marco Pantanella takes a look at how each protagonist from Serie A did this week, for the first leg of UEFA Champions League’s Round of 16. Courtesy of mCalcio.com, the blog for Italian Serie A news.

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The Champions League finally got back underway on Tuesday night, with the round of 16 kicking off with the first four first-leg ties. Here are the highlights (and lowlights) of last night’s action.

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If you’d believed all you’d read in the past couple of days, it wasn’t worth Liverpool showing up to face Internazionale tonight, after all, having seen their Premiership challenge fail to last the winter (again), and then their FA Cup ambitions go up in smoke at the hands of Barnsley at the weekend, a game against the side eleven points clear at the top of Serie A, and unbeaten since September 29th in all competitions, was hardly the ideal fixture, especially in front of an increasingly expectant and impatient Kop.

But as it happened, for Rafa Benitèz and his men it WAS the ideal fixture. From the moment the overly fussy Belgian referee Frank De Bleeckere blew his whistle to start proceedings at Anfield, Liverpool were everything the fans believe they should be every week- sharp, focused, committed, energetic, and probing. It was the Liverpool that had been noticeably missing since sometime at the end of November, and it was a wholly more enjoyable sight than the lethargic side that has been masquerading as Premier League challengers for the past couple of months.

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Liverpool 2, Inter Milan 0.

Before kick-off, that scoreline would been considered unlikely - but as hoped by Liverpool fans, Rafa’s men rose to their next European challenge and produced as good a display as could be hoped for (considering the buildup) to beat 10-man Inter Milan 2-0.

The scoreline hardly tells the whole story though.

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