Internazionale Main Thread III

[RomaShield27]

[Lombardiamia]

Fucker.....

[Italiamia]

[Oram]

[juventino_italiano]

[Oram]

[juventino_italiano]

[Totally FRANK]

[Totally FRANK]

May be the headline is a little too much (since we still have to win the cup) but I like Moratti's quote...
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In José Mourinho Inter finally have a true heir to Helenio Herrera

In qualifying for the Champions League final, Internazionale turned back the clock to their glory days in the 1960s

The Internazionale coach, José Mourinho, celebrates after his side qualified for their first European Cup final since 1972. Photograph: Josep Lago/AFP/Getty Images

When Massimo Moratti hired José Mourinho to emulate the European Cup triumphs engineered for his father, Angelo, in the 1960s by Helenio Herrera, he cannot have imagined that the Portuguese coach would take him so literally. Internazionale secured their passage to the final at the expense of Barcelona on Wednesday night by tactics that emulated the stifling effect, if not precisely the catenaccio formula, of Herrera's Grande Inter, in the process exposing Mourinho to similar accusations of promoting a form of anti-football.

The Portuguese controversialist will not mind one bit when he is characterised as the dark star of the game, deploying his resources with the aim of drawing his opponents into a hellish black hole, happy to finish a crucial match with his nine surviving outfield players lined up in front of their own goalmouth as long as it provides him a result bolstering his own claims to immortality.

Others will take a more generous view of his methods. Much as the world loves the heady euphoria generated by the way Josep Guardiola's Barcelona play at their frequent best, defence is as important a part of football as attack. Were it otherwise, the game's strategic evolution would not have reached the conclusion that a team need to be divided more or less equally between the two functions. And it would not have invented such artists of the defensive arts as Franz Beckenbauer, Gaetano Scirea, Daniel Passarella and Inter's Lúcio.

And here is the first of two unanswerable propositions in defence of Mourinho's approach: on their own turf, at San Siro, his side had beaten Barcelona 3-1 a week earlier with a display of incisive, progressive counterattacking football that would have delighted Brian Clough. They had done their job and in the second instalment it was up to the Catalan club to respond.

That Barcelona could not rise to the occasion raises the second proposition, which specifically identifies the transfer of Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Inter to Barça last summer, the trade involving the move of Samuel Eto'o in the other direction, along with the depositing of €46m (£40m) in the Italian club's bank account. For that enormous outlay Guardiola secured a striker who so often fails to strike on the big occasions and whose repeated failures in the second leg of the semi-final gradually drained the assurance from his colleagues.

Mourinho, on the other hand, got himself a former African footballer of the year still, at the age of 29, close to his lethal prime and clearly, on the evidence of his work since his move to Italy, full of appetite for further honours. His unselfishness was the most prominent feature of his 85 minutes on the pitch on Wednesday, and his current manager will also be pleasantly aware that Eto'o has already scored for the winning side in two European Cup finals. More significantly, perhaps, with the cash Mourinho also acquired Wesley Sneijder, Lúcio and Diego Milito, three players who provided the resilient spine of his redesigned and vastly improved team.

Before the match Xavi Hernández was asked to compare Mourinho and Guardiola, two coaches whose work he knows at first hand. Perhaps concluding that the contrasts were obvious to everyone, he preferred to emphasise the similarity. "They both think about nothing but tactics and strategy," he said. But it was the younger man's acumen that was found wanting on Wednesday as he allowed Ibrahimovic to return to the pitch after the interval, leaving it until the 63rd minute before replacing him with Bojan Krkic. In the closing minutes it became evident that Gerard Piqué, the centre-back, is a more effective striker than the big Swede.

This morning a columnist in Sport, the Barcelona daily, lamented the result with a pinch of venom. Mourinho, he wrote, is only interested in results, and will never be welcome back at the Camp Nou as head coach: "He is a born provocateur and a character without scruples."

But Mourinho had got his retaliation in first, not just in his gestures at the final whistle but in his description of the contest as "a spectacular match – from the point of view of defensive organisation" and in his elegantly diplomatic response to a question about whether his destiny might one day install him as Guardiola's successor.

"Only a stupid coach would not want to coach Barça, and that's not me," he said. "I have always respected this club, and I can't forget that I spent four years here. But maybe this hatred can't be transformed into love. [Luís] Figo [now on Inter's staff] is one who was loved here but became the enemy. I'm a professional in football and I'm happy because we've won, not because others have lost."

Mourinho is the 14th coach employed by Massimo Moratti in as many seasons at the helm of Inter, and the president was happy to make comparisons with Herrera, whom he remembers from his boyhood, guiding Inter to the victories of 1964 and 1965. "They have a similar character – great workers, great professionals, courageous and charismatic," he said. "I see them [as being] very similar. It's difficult to find a defect in Mourinho. Perhaps he is a little introverted, but he is marvellous."

Clearly Moratti needed a sense of humour to help him through Inter's turbulent history over the past decade and a half. So now the home of Real Madrid, spared the ordeal of hosting a final featuring Barcelona, will take the opportunity for a good look at the galáctico of coaches, a man who may soon be radiating his divisive charisma and well-known introversion as he deploys his wiles on their behalf.

[Dejan-Stankovic]

Reaching group stage: €3.8m
Participating in group stage: €550k per match, x6 matches = €3.3m

For a win: €800k x2 (€1.6m)
For a draw: €400k x3 (€1.2m)

Playing in Round of 16: €3m
Playing in Quarters: €3.3m
Playing in Semis: €4m
Playing in Final: €5.2m

Champions League winners: €9m

So far we've won a total of €25.4 mil from CL prize money alone.

Now this doesn't include money from the market pool where UEFA splits up the TV rights and other stuff. How much money you get depends on where you are in your national league, tv audience, other teams from your country in the CL etc. I dare say we'd be one of, if not the most, watched team in the CL this season as we played Barca x4 and Chelsea x2 which would have drawn huge audiences. Include ticket sales after that (which would include 3 sold out home games for Barca x2 and Chelsea x1) and we're going to be making a killing this season.

[Lombardiamia]

I honestly remember much bigger prizes on various articles I read last year. Maybe that is because as you said, much depends on other factors other than just being there...Where did you get this info from Dejan?

[Dejan-Stankovic]

I think it was Shield who posted the link in another thread but this is it: http://www.theoffside.com/tournaments/c ... gn=twitter

It outlines it in there but there's also a pdf file in there which is from UEFA showing all the prize money to different teams. Unless I'm reading it wrong, it's pretty confusing tbh; Barcelona who won the tournament were actually in 3rd position for money earned and Man Utd who lost to them made 8 mil more and second were Bayern. I thought I'd read somewhere that Barca has won something close to €80 mil but I really can't remember..

Just say we win the tournament, that's €34.4 mil only in prize money. Last year we got €18+ mil from the market pool. Then throw in all our ticket sales (remember 3 full houses at S.Siro = 240,000 people just vs Barcax2 and Chelseax1, can't remember if CSKA was sold out too) and it could hit somewhere in the region of €60-€70 mil (wild guess from me). I imagine we'd also get money from competing in all the added comps like FIFA World Club Cup and Super Cup vs Europa Cup winner. So if we win it, then we could make a killing but even if we don't, we'll still get a nice figure.

I also just realized that it doesn't say if this money is before/after tax so I'm not sure what the deal is there.

[Dejan-Stankovic]

Xavi: 'Barca proud, but are Inter?'

Thursday 29 April, 2010

Xavi insists Barcelona are proud of their Champions League efforts. “I don’t know if Inter can say the same.â€

[zafferano]

When is all over and done we get over 100 millions of euro
as you can see theres planty money to buy any player .
about kavi ? that show if you get the media on side
you can say and get away with any shit .they should
be shame of them self , they way i see it
all the crap before the match about Piques comments
annoyng the players when sleeping
the water on the field
the spit on mou car and the harassing of the bus
the diving
and they suppost to be the best team in world
when they come to milan they been treated as guest

but that is how the media manimulate
BALOTELLI.
i have to change my mind about him ,is really a kid in the brain
he cry after the game and apologise to the fan over and over
i feel he come out better and stronger out of this and will stay with as

[Dejan-Stankovic]

About the prize money, even though I want to splash all of it on say a Fabregas, Hamsik etc, I think we should keep our heads here. We should continue with the summer sales we originally intended to do (Burdisso, Muntari, Quaresma, Balo?), bring back some youth like Biabiany and fund our plans from there. I say this because if our prize money ends up being near 100 million Euros, that would put a serious dent into money we borrow for a new stadium. Something like the Emirates which is a 60,000 seater cost £390 million and if I remember correctly that's the size Moratti said we were looking at which is just about perfect imo. Overall, that would mean a lot less years we'll have to tighten our purse strings to pay for it and it would just be the logical thing to do.

[Lombardiamia]

[Lombardiamia]

[Dejan-Stankovic]

[zafferano]

[zafferano]