Internazionale Main Thread IV

[kros]

I think that the result against Roma was too harsh ... although, I think that Roma deserved the win. What I was most happy about though was the fighting spirit shown. I have rarely seen a Serie A side battle with such determination until the 90' minute even though they are 3-0 down. Mazzarri has surely given the team his spirit. The famous NON MOLLARE MAI which our supporters started in 2002 can be re-sung on the terraces.

In the meantime on Monday I was absolutely delighted with Zanetti's visit at the Inter Club Malta. A true gentleman, a superb captain, a monument for the club. What a greeting he was given with all of us chanting CE' SOLO UN CAPITANO .. UN CAPITANO!!!

[Lombardiamia]

Right now I'm not sure what I'd prefer Zanetti to do... On one side, I'm quite happy he's out (we already have Cambiasso walking around for 90 mins.), on the other hand, ever since he's been injured he hasn't stopped leaving interviews left, right & centre...I should think he has left more interviews these past couple of months than his career. It's annoying to say the least.
Zanetti HAS been a great player. A legend if you like. Now I just hope he finds a new hobby.

[kros]

IL CAPITANO!!!

[Messinterista]

Mazzarri: Maybe I'll retire at Inter

Inter boss Walter Mazzarri has claimed that he would like to end his career with the Nerazzurri.

The Coach was brought in over the summer to replace Andrea Stramaccioni at San Siro, and the former Napoli man has insisted that he could well retire with the Beneamata.

“Inter are a great club,” he told Tuttosport. “Living it from the inside, you get the feeling that it’s one big family. And that’s really nice.

“Let’s see what happens here, but I could well be here my whole career.

“We have a real group of players here who are trying their all and giving me everything.

“Would the Europa League be a good finish? Given would happened last season, we want to be in a European competition.

“This year is almost ‘Year Zero’ for us. The boys are fighting, and we have seen already that the results are improving.

“I think the real fruits of our labour will be seen in two to three years though. We need to have patience.”

Mazzarri was then asked if he would have been more appreciated in Italy if he’d been a foreign Coach.

“We Italian are a provincial bunch. It is often said that no one is a prophet in their homeland, and perhaps that’s true.

“Maybe someone from a different country is seen as exotic and has a different appeal.”

Source: http://www.football-italia.net/40490/ma ... tire-inter

[Messinterista]

Palacio injury scare

Inter striker Rodrigo Palacio will be rested against Uruguay after picking up an injury for Argentina. “It’s just a knock.”

The forward scored and provided an assist, but went off nine minutes from the end against Peru with a left thigh problem.

“It’s just a knock,” he told the Corriere dello Sport.

There are reports Palacio will be sent home early, as the game with Uruguay is irrelevant because Argentina have already qualified for the World Cup.

Ricky Alvarez is also recovering from a sprained ankle.

Source: http://www.football-italia.net/40546/pa ... jury-scare

[Totally FRANK]

Mauro Icardi's long road home to Argentina
Posted by James Horncastle

In Rosario, Argentina, there is a barrio by the name of Alberdi. Jose Alberto Cordoba works in one of its restaurants. When he's not waiting tables, he can be found at the clubhouse of Sarratea, the local football team where he coaches. Laid out on the table are various newspaper cuttings and photographs. They tell of Mauro Icardi, the Inter striker Cordoba once had on his books.

"It was 1998," Cordoba recalled to La Gazzetta dello Sport. "I was coaching the 5-year-olds. Mauro was brought to me. Even then, he was already bigger than his teammates. I gave him a ball and told him to dribble it up to the halfway line to see how he did. He ran the length of the pitch and back in a minute; he had incredible speed. I had to look at his documents again to convince myself that he wasn't a couple of years older than the others. Almost immediately, I knew that I had a natural talent on my hands."

Cordoba wasn't wrong. Icardi's father Juan had been a promising footballer back in the day. On the books of Rosario Central, the club Che Guevara supported whose yellow-and-blue colours were worn by Argentina’s 1978 World Cup-winning hero Mario Kempes, Juan had been on the brink of making his first-team debut when the death of his father meant he had to give up his football career to support his family.

When Mauro was born, Juan insisted that his son take up the game. "I didn't even like football," Icardi admitted to SportWeek. Living vicariously through him, however, clearly meant a lot to his father. "He has said to me many times, 'You must succeed where I failed.'" Rather than a burden, it was "an added motivation. He always wanted me to become No. 1."

Icardi would get to Sarra about an hour before everyone else and, finding the ground still locked, hop over the wall and start training. As Cordoba opened the place up, he would often get a surprise. "How'd you get in here?"

That work ethic paid off. The young Icardi scored 58 goals in his first season at Sarra and 108 the next as they began to dominate the Asociacion de Futbol Infantil di Rosario. Nicknamed "Canito" -- the firework -- for his explosiveness, his numbers were not too dissimilar to those put up by another kid from the barrio of Bajada in the south of the city playing for Grandoli a few years earlier -- a certain Lionel Messi.

To an extent, their fates are intertwined. A thigh injury suffered in Barcelona's 2-0 win at Almeria toward the end of last month ruled Messi out of Argentina's final World Cup qualifiers against Peru in Buenos Aires on Friday -- a 3-1 win -- and Uruguay in Montevideo next week. With their place in Brazil already booked, coach Alejandro Sabella could allow himself to be creative about replacing Messi over this international fortnight. So he called up the 20-year-old Icardi for the first time.

"I'm really happy," the player said. "It's a dream to be here."

He could have played for Spain. Italy too. How so? "Argentina," to borrow a phrase from Icardi, "was suffocated by crisis" in the late '90s and early 2000s. The country defaulted on its debt. Levels of unemployment and underemployment rose to 30 percent. Icardi's grandparents looked after him, his sister Ivana and brother Guido while their parents held down a number of jobs to make ends meet. Times were hard, and when Icardi was 9, his father decided to move the family to the Canary Islands. He said good-bye to Sarra. "No ocean can separate us when you have Sarra in your blood," Icardi wrote to Cordoba.

Icardi found a new boys' club on the other side of the Atlantic, Union Deportiva Vecindario. There, his reputation grew. Icardi scored goal after goal after goal on the dusty pitches of the Canary Islands, 384 to be precise. It wasn't long before word reached Barcelona. Their scouts had discovered Pedro playing in the same islands some years earlier. One went to watch Icardi, liked what he saw and recommended the club offer him a place at La Masia.

According to the player, reports that Messi bombarded him with text messages, imploring his fellow Rosarino to join Barca, aren't true. But Icardi did receive a signed photograph of Messi through the post one day, recommending that he follow him to Catalunya.

"Only a madman would have refused the offer of entering the academy of the best club in the world," Icardi said. "I met Leo for the first time a while later when I was leaving training one day. I went up to him and said, 'You remember that kid who you sent a photo to? That was me.' From that day, we saw each other quite a lot in Barcelona, never in Rosario. He took me out to dinner. He even invited me to his house once, but I couldn't go. Now we've lost touch a bit."

That's because after winning the Juvenil Championship and the Copa Catalunya and scoring 38 goals over a two-and-a-half-year period at La Masia, Icardi came to the same conclusion that Cesc Fabregas did before joining Arsenal a decade ago. Competition for places in the first team was so fierce that, realistically, he wouldn't get the playing time he needed to develop at Barca.

Also, his profile was different from that of the players who tend to make it from the youth team to the first team at the Camp Nou.

"Someone with my characteristics couldn't find space in that team," Icardi said. "Look at [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic. Even he failed. Barca play without a centre-forward. All my teammates in the youth system who were big and tall like me have left the club."

Icardi came to the attention of Sampdoria at a youth tournament in Italy in 2010. Since its relegation, the club had made a priority of identifying the best young talent in Europe and nurturing it. Chief scout Riccardo Pecini, who has since taken up the same post at Monaco, had already plucked Pedro Obiang from Atletico Madrid. After seeing Icardi curl in an extraordinary free-kick for Barca's Juvenil side in a 5-1 win against a Milan team with players two to three years his senior, Pecini reported back to his director of sport at the time, Sergio Gasparin, that this was a kid they absolutely had to have at Bogliasco. He was a star in the making.

An agreement was reached with Barca for 400,000 euros, and with hindsight, it's perhaps one of the best deals Samp have done in recent memory. Icardi scored on his debut against Juve Stabia, clinching the club a place in the playoffs through which it was promoted back to Serie A. His first appearance in the top flight was in the Derby della Lanterna, a match Samp went into on a run of seven straight defeats. Icardi scored the decisive goal in a 3-1 win. In the first game back from the winter break at the turn of this year came a performance that made everyone stand up and pay attention.

Icardi scored twice to earn Sampdoria a shock win at Serie A champion Juventus last season.
Behind a goal and down to 10 men at the Juventus Stadium, no one gave Samp a prayer of getting a result against the champions. Icardi, however, scored twice and claimed an improbable victory for his side. It was one of the shocks of last season in Serie A. Some weeks later, he struck four times in one game against Pescara, becoming the first Samp player to hit a poker since Sergio Brighenti over half a century before. By coincidence, Messi managed the same feat that day as Barca trounced Osasuna 5-1.

Hearing that he had an Italian passport on account of his father's side of the family originating from Piedmont, the FIGC -- Italy's Football Federation -- approached Icardi on a number of occasions to see if he would consider playing for the Azzurri. A matter of months after joining Samp, he was called up for the under-19s ahead of a match against Hungary but declined. Icardi wanted to hold out for Argentina.

He played for their under-20s and wasn't particularly pleased when Samp told him that he wouldn't be going to the sub-20 youth tournament in South America in the spring of this year because of the delicate situation the club found itself in following the dismissal of Ciro Ferrara. Even so, Icardi, or at least his camp, was giving out mixed signals.

Although he has often repeated, "I feel Argentine. I don't feel Italian or Spanish. I have said it from the beginning," he has also said, "For now, I'm Argentine, but you never know." He was keeping his options open, it seemed, preparing perhaps to follow the many other Oriundi and become the 20th player born in Argentina of Italian ancestry to go on and represent the Azzurri.

An interview with Italy coach Cesare Prandelli by La Gazzetta dello Sport's Luigi Garlando gave a rather illuminating insight into how close the FIGC thought it was to getting Icardi. When it was put to him that, "The player wants Argentina," Prandelli replied, "He told us otherwise. We've talked to him about it. There was an agreement. Then something happened."

That something was perhaps Sabella travelling to Genova to watch Icardi in person and reassuring him that Argentina were monitoring him closely. "If you keep scoring, I'll find a place for you," he said. And Icardi did just that. He finished his first full season in Serie A with 11 goals, the final one proving the winner in another unlikely 3-2 triumph over Juve.

On moving to Inter, he picked up where he left off, scoring against Juve in the Derby d'Italia and in a 1-1 draw with Cagliari. Used as an impact sub by coach Walter Mazzarri, stats from WhoScored.com show he has the fewest touches per goal in Europe (14.5).

That might partly explain why there's a belief among his peers that, as was the case with Pippo Inzaghi, aside from scoring, he doesn't do much else. Fifty topflight footballers polled anonymously by La Gazzetta dello Sport voted Icardi, along with Mario Balotelli and Ezequiel Schelotto, the most overrated player in Serie A.

But if Icardi is overrated, then goals must be too. He has an instinct for them. And in the big games. Players with intangibles like that are hard to come by. Quick and of a size that has prompted Esteban Cambiasso to draw comparisons between Icardi and Hernan Crespo, he'll learn a lot from training alongside Rodrigo Palacio and Diego Milito every day.

He'll gain in influence too. According to La Nacion, it was Icardi's captain at club level Javier Zanetti who pushed Sabella to finally call him up for this round of games.

Kept on the bench against Peru, perhaps his debut will come in Uruguay. If so, expect there to be quite a roar in Rosario.

[Lombardiamia]

Now it's practically official. Today, 15th October 2013 is a historic day.
Can't wait to see the changes. Hope Branca will be the first to be shown the door...

[kros]

It is now official that Throir is the major share holder with 70% of the shares. I think this was a necessary step for the good of the club. Football nowadays has become an international business, and these people will run the club more like a company and less like a family business.

I am not expecting the fire-works we had in the first Moratti years when he smashed the world transfer record time after time with Ronaldo and Vieri, but I am expecting to see the club grow internationally, hopefully becoming a 'brand' similar to Man Utd and Barcelona. Throir said his aim was to make out of Inter one of the top 10 teams in the world ... hopefully he will succeed.

Even though with a minority share I am glad to see the Morattis still involved in the club. This family is synonymous with Inter and will guarantee that things are done always keeping the interest of the club and it's supporters first.

[kros]

I think this comment by an Italian fan sums its up quite well ...

Grazie a Massimo Moratti, per il suoi 19 anni da presidente dell'Inter, grazie per essere una persona onesta e perbene, grazie per aver speso moltissimo, senza avere nulla o quasi in cambio, per questa squadra, grazie per aver sofferto per anni il marciume del calcio italiano, grazie per aver mantenuto i colori nerazzurri puliti, grazie per non doverci vergognare quando dobbiamo parlare dei nostri presidenti, grazie per i campioni che ci hai regalato, grazie per i trofei che ci hai fatto conquistare, grazie per aver creato la seconda Grande Inter, e grazie per aver passato la mano quando era giusto farlo. Grazie, non ti dimenticheremo

[Totally FRANK]

The next PSG or Man City? Erick Thohir's plans to revolutionise Inter

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editor ... ID=HP_BN_6

[Messinterista]

Leonardo ready for Inter job

On the day Erick Thohir buys 70 per cent of Inter, Leonardo has his ban quashed on appeal, so could join as director of sport.

Today Massimo Moratti officially signed over control of the club to Indonesian magnate Thohir, though hinted he could remain on as President.

“I will continue to be around for as long as I am useful,” said Moratti.

Meanwhile, today the appeals tribunal in Paris quashed Leonardo’s ban for pushing a referee.

He had resigned as director general of PSG after a nine-month ban was extended to 14 months for nudging an official after the Ligue 1 game with Valenciennes.

His suspension was not due to expire until June 30 2014, but today the tribunal accepted his lawyer’s view that the French Federation cannot suspend a director once he leaves one of their clubs.

“Leonardo has rediscovered his freedom of movement and is free to sign for any club or country who is interested,” declared lawyer Paul Mauriac.

“He is happy, feels relieved and aware he carried on a legitimate battle.”

While Leonardo has history at Milan as a player, talent scout, director and Coach, his experience at Inter was short-lived.

He took over from Rafa Benitez for six months and then quit to become director at Paris Saint-Germain.

Leonardo has since married a Sky Sport Italia journalist who lives in Milan and has called this city “my home,” so a return to work for Thohir at Inter is on the cards.

Source: http://www.football-italia.net/40629/le ... -inter-job

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Quite a coincidence considering the amazing announcement today!

[RomaShield27]

Moratti’s Most Expensive Tactical XI (via @InterStats)

[Totally FRANK]

[kros]

[kros]

Some interesting statistics on Moratti ... 16 trophies in 18 years has made him the most successful president in club history (could have been more if everything would have been square and fair).

Since WW2 period, Inter have managed to win only 3 titles without the Moratti family.

[Messinterista]

[kros]

[Lombardiamia]

[kros]

[Lombardiamia]