Can anyone stop irresistible Inter?
Paolo Bandini
December 3, 2007 3:27 PM
After brushing aside previously fancied Fiorentina, Inter are on course to bag a hat-trick of back-to-back Scudettos. Flicking back through the last month's Italian papers, it's hard not to notice something of a common theme. "Trezegol defies Inter", "Inter don't escape", "Juve's heart slows Inter". To say there has been a fear of the Nerazzurri repeating last season's romp to the title would be an understatement. With Juventus back in the top flight and the Calciopoli points deductions out of the way, most pundits were hoping the title race would at least stay alive longer than in 2006-07 - when Inter matched a record set by Torino in 1948 by tying up the Scudetto with five games to spare.
Don't count on them getting their wish.
On an emotional Sunday at the Stadio Franchi, as Fiorentina coach Cesare Prandelli returned to work for the first time since his wife Manuela succumbed to breast cancer on Monday, Inter systematically took apart a Fiorentina side that a few short weeks ago were undefeated and being discussed as dark horses for the title. The result came less than 24 hours after Milan and Juventus had battled to a goalless draw, giving Inter a five-point lead over the Bianconeri with a game in hand. Now only Roma, who beat Udinese 2-1, remain within touching distance.
The gap between Italy's top two may only be three points, but right now it looks a lot wider. The 4-1 hiding the champions handed Roma in their own back yard remains fresh in the memory, and the ease with which they are dispatching almost every other side is ominous. Fiorentina have already held each of Roma, Milan and Juventus, but the fact this game only finished 2-0 was more a testament to Sébastien Frey's goalkeeping than to the overall balance of the game. The Viola could, of course, be excused for having had their minds elsewhere, but the truth is they did not particularly perform beneath themselves. Inter were simply superlative.
"The ease with which [Inter boss Roberto] Mancini's team won at Fiorentina was staggering," beams Marcello Di Dio in Milanese daily Il Giornale this morning. "The Nerazzurri were never out of breath, they constructed play, they seemed capable of doing damage with every attack."
Mancini deserves significant credit. In the past, for all their success, his charges often appeared little more than a collection of exceptionally talented individuals - sent out in a straightforward 4-4-2 and left to do what came naturally. This year, while the formation remains the same, the coherence has been greatly increased. The trequartista (attacking midfield) role, in particular, has been refined to allow greater freedom to roam and push on behind, or even at times ahead of, the attackers - who can then drop off to cover the space created and drag defenders out of position.
It is a ploy that has worked to great effect - particularly impressive given that Inter's injury-list has often run longer than a Russell Crowe acceptance speech. So far this season Inter have used no less than 25 players in 13 league games, and yesterday Mancini had to turn to Luis Jiménez - on loan from Ternana and at best third choice behind Dejan Stankovic (unfit after returning from injury against Fenerbahce on Tueday) and Luís Figo (out for the foreseeable with a broken leg) - to fill the trequartista role. He did so admirably, albeit helped by an unselfish Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who dropped deep so regularly it was at times hard to know which assignment each was filling, and laid on both Jiménez's opener and Julio Cruz's second.
Jiménez, incidentally, used to play for the Viola - a fact surely not lost on an Italian press corps who had focussed in the build up on the number of former Inter players in Fiorentina's lineup (Frey, Christian Vieri, Adrian Mutu and Alessandro Potenza have all been on Inter's books). Of those who had gone the other way, probably only Frey, who made some spectacular saves from Ibrahimovic - now without a league goal in over two months, despite his continued excellent performances - emerged with more credit.
At full-time Fiorentina's players formed a guard of honour to applaud Inter off the pitch - a dignified gesture, if for some reason officially unauthorised by the league, to end a game that had started with white roses being thrown on to the pitch for Prandelli and a well-observed minute's silence. Maybe it's time the rest of us paid similar homage to a side that continues to raise the bar they themselves have set.
Results: Atalanta 5-1 Napoli, Cagliari 0-0 Livorno, Catania 3-1 Palermo, Fiorentina 0-2 Inter, Milan 0-0 Juventus, Parma 1-0 Empoli, Roma 2-1 Udinese, Sampdoria 3-0 Reggina, Siena 1-1 Lazio, Torino 1-1 Genoa.
Paolo Bandini
December 3, 2007 3:27 PM
After brushing aside previously fancied Fiorentina, Inter are on course to bag a hat-trick of back-to-back Scudettos. Flicking back through the last month's Italian papers, it's hard not to notice something of a common theme. "Trezegol defies Inter", "Inter don't escape", "Juve's heart slows Inter". To say there has been a fear of the Nerazzurri repeating last season's romp to the title would be an understatement. With Juventus back in the top flight and the Calciopoli points deductions out of the way, most pundits were hoping the title race would at least stay alive longer than in 2006-07 - when Inter matched a record set by Torino in 1948 by tying up the Scudetto with five games to spare.
Don't count on them getting their wish.
On an emotional Sunday at the Stadio Franchi, as Fiorentina coach Cesare Prandelli returned to work for the first time since his wife Manuela succumbed to breast cancer on Monday, Inter systematically took apart a Fiorentina side that a few short weeks ago were undefeated and being discussed as dark horses for the title. The result came less than 24 hours after Milan and Juventus had battled to a goalless draw, giving Inter a five-point lead over the Bianconeri with a game in hand. Now only Roma, who beat Udinese 2-1, remain within touching distance.
The gap between Italy's top two may only be three points, but right now it looks a lot wider. The 4-1 hiding the champions handed Roma in their own back yard remains fresh in the memory, and the ease with which they are dispatching almost every other side is ominous. Fiorentina have already held each of Roma, Milan and Juventus, but the fact this game only finished 2-0 was more a testament to Sébastien Frey's goalkeeping than to the overall balance of the game. The Viola could, of course, be excused for having had their minds elsewhere, but the truth is they did not particularly perform beneath themselves. Inter were simply superlative.
"The ease with which [Inter boss Roberto] Mancini's team won at Fiorentina was staggering," beams Marcello Di Dio in Milanese daily Il Giornale this morning. "The Nerazzurri were never out of breath, they constructed play, they seemed capable of doing damage with every attack."
Mancini deserves significant credit. In the past, for all their success, his charges often appeared little more than a collection of exceptionally talented individuals - sent out in a straightforward 4-4-2 and left to do what came naturally. This year, while the formation remains the same, the coherence has been greatly increased. The trequartista (attacking midfield) role, in particular, has been refined to allow greater freedom to roam and push on behind, or even at times ahead of, the attackers - who can then drop off to cover the space created and drag defenders out of position.
It is a ploy that has worked to great effect - particularly impressive given that Inter's injury-list has often run longer than a Russell Crowe acceptance speech. So far this season Inter have used no less than 25 players in 13 league games, and yesterday Mancini had to turn to Luis Jiménez - on loan from Ternana and at best third choice behind Dejan Stankovic (unfit after returning from injury against Fenerbahce on Tueday) and Luís Figo (out for the foreseeable with a broken leg) - to fill the trequartista role. He did so admirably, albeit helped by an unselfish Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who dropped deep so regularly it was at times hard to know which assignment each was filling, and laid on both Jiménez's opener and Julio Cruz's second.
Jiménez, incidentally, used to play for the Viola - a fact surely not lost on an Italian press corps who had focussed in the build up on the number of former Inter players in Fiorentina's lineup (Frey, Christian Vieri, Adrian Mutu and Alessandro Potenza have all been on Inter's books). Of those who had gone the other way, probably only Frey, who made some spectacular saves from Ibrahimovic - now without a league goal in over two months, despite his continued excellent performances - emerged with more credit.
At full-time Fiorentina's players formed a guard of honour to applaud Inter off the pitch - a dignified gesture, if for some reason officially unauthorised by the league, to end a game that had started with white roses being thrown on to the pitch for Prandelli and a well-observed minute's silence. Maybe it's time the rest of us paid similar homage to a side that continues to raise the bar they themselves have set.
Results: Atalanta 5-1 Napoli, Cagliari 0-0 Livorno, Catania 3-1 Palermo, Fiorentina 0-2 Inter, Milan 0-0 Juventus, Parma 1-0 Empoli, Roma 2-1 Udinese, Sampdoria 3-0 Reggina, Siena 1-1 Lazio, Torino 1-1 Genoa.
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