The Monday Scratch

Inter's big party makes Milan and Juve's finale even more bitter

In Milan, it is a grey Sunday at the end of April, but it doesn't matter: the grey turns to black and blue. Although announced months ago, the party is no less exciting, indeed

by Dario Ceccarelli

29 April 2024

Inter Festa scudetto, la squadra si affaccia dal balcone della Terrazza Duomo 21 in piazza Duomo a Milano, Italia - sport calcio Domenica, 28 Aprile, 2024. (Foto di Claudio Furlan/Lapresse)

5' min read

Here it is, the Great Scudetto Party. In Milan, it's a grey Sunday at the end of April, but it doesn't matter. The grey transcends into black and blue. Although it has been announced for months, the party is no less exciting, on the contrary. In the evening of miracles the taste gains us with stadium choirs and multiple taunts about the Milanese cousins (Teo Hernandez and Ibrahimovic are in the crosshairs) and the right tribute for such an extraordinary championship.

An even more special flavour. Like when, as a child, you wait for Christmas day: you know it will come, but the great anticipation, so long nurtured, makes everything even more magical. And the second star, so longed for by the fans, becomes a symbolic comet. Just like the two Nerazzurri buses, with players, managers and a few gatecrashers, that from the San Siro, passing through Milan, finally arrived in the evening at the Duomo, in a square packed with fans and Nerazzurri flags;

A very slow moveable feast started immediately after the predictable victory over Torino (2-0) in a match played purposely at lunchtime to give time and space for celebration. What happened on the pitch and the two goals by Calhanoglu (one of the Scudetto's top players), which came in the second half after Tameze's sending-off, count for nothing. All that counts is this pure joy, of primordial happiness, which is perhaps the most beautiful component of football. A good magic that helps, if it does not lapse into vulgarity, to chase away other collective fanaticism

Inzaghi, in one year from boos to triumph

Popular sentiment is beautiful, contagious. But it has to be taken in small doses, like the excessive rhetoric of those who today are jumping on the winner's bandwagon. Now Simone Inzaghi is hailed as a venerable bench master, but only a year ago, before the Champions League final with City, the Nerazzurri coach was mocked as a coach who made thirty but not thirty-one. An incomplete. One who made the wrong changes during matches. One who, all things considered, was not for Inter and who made you regret the good old days of Conte and Mourinho;

Now, a year later, the picture is completely reversed. One has to thank those who, like CEO Beppe Marotta ('we are only halfway through our cycle, the best is yet to come'), are well acquainted with the difficult technical and economic alchemies of football;

Football cannot be improvised, and this Inter championship confirms it. What is needed is serious and effective planning, conceived for the future and not to ride the wave and the fans' belly aches that used to be exhausted in bars and are now gaining more and more weight and relevance in a rabid digital protagonism that lasts the space of a morning.

Now that everyone is celebrating Inter, these considerations must be put to the Great Disappointed, that is to say Milan and Juventus, who drew nil-nil in Turin on Saturday, giving rise to the challenge of the melancholy losers. Those who instead of curbing Inter's overwhelming march ended up contending for a dismal second and third place. Good placings that, while guaranteeing access to the Champions League, are, in the eyes of the fans, worth like a gazzosa instead of prosecco. Inter's extraordinary success, paradoxically, has fuelled the fans' anger even more. Especially the Rossoneri, who now see every derby as a hopeless ordeal;

Milan, fans against Lopetegui

What now? What happens now? Woe to the vanquished? Ironies aside, there is little to stay Allegri. Even in Milan, where Pioli will be dismissed by popular acclaim. A legitimate choice, but what is the alternative that, according to market speculation, the club is proposing? The main candidate would be this Julien Lopetegui, a 57-year-old Basque coach, almost unknown to most until yesterday. It is true that Lopetegui won a Europa League with Sevilla, beating Inter, but in short, apart from two successes with the Spanish Under-19 and 21 teams, he has done nothing else of note. And so have the other candidates who, in cascade, would please the Rossoneri managers;

But does it seem normal to you that when a house burns down, as Milan is burning down, a fireman with little experience is called in to put out the flames? And to rebuild it, to whom do we entrust it? This management, on which a judicial investigation still hangs to find out who the real owner really is, must take responsibility. After having sent away an experienced manager like Paolo Maldini, sold Tonali and bought 10 foreign players who didn't know a word of Italian, now this management cannot offload all the disappointment of a season on Pioli alone. And what about Ibrahimovic? Now Giorgio Furlani, the Rossoneri's managing director, has expressed his annoyance at the too many rumours that have come out about the change of coach. The truth, however, is that Pioli has almost always been left alone. Never really defended or supported. Every match was his last resort. A club must be compact, otherwise it ends up like with Napoli or Salernitana. Coaches must have credibility. That is first of all supported from within. That is why you cannot put a foreign coach on the bench who knows little about our football. Either he is a phenomenon like Arrigo Sacchi, or at the third defeat the fans will boo him mercilessly.

Allegri, a train at the end of its run

Juventus, too, had few ideas but were confused. On Saturday with Milan they perhaps deserved to win, but the performance, as always, was modest. Allegri too, and not only in the perception of the fans, is a train wreck. The coach from Livorno can still bring home a Coppa Italia, but would that really change anything? The problem is perhaps a complex one. The truth is that Juventus is no longer that of Gianni and Umberto Agnelli. History remains, an important history, but John Elkann's club is something else. The balance sheet, as for almost all clubs, is dramatically in the red and Allegri's early exit would cost over 20 million. So either they start again with a young coach with all the risks involved. Or they keep Allegri's reheated soup, making a virtue of necessity. Either way, it's not a pretty sight.

The Champions race: group braking. While Inter are celebrating, behind it is a head-to-head for those who are going slower. Starting with Bologna who, drawing at home with Udinese (1-1), lost the chance to hook Juve in second place. An almost unrecognisable Bologna, in ten in the second half due to Beukema's expulsion, braked both psychologically and physically. Down by a goal (Payero), the red-blue drew level with a free kick from Saelemaekers, but in the final, Udinese came close to victory with a Davis post. Good then the debut, on the bench of the friulani, of Fabio Cannavaro.

Good draw between Napoli and Roma

Napoli and Roma, at the Maradona, also evenly divided the stakes (2-2) in a beautiful challenge in which the partenopei (perhaps because of the threat of a new retirement) could easily have won if they did not suffer from the embarrassing defensive problems we know. After coming back from an early one-nil lead through Olivera and Osimhen Dybala's one-nil, Napoli were however lost just a few metres from the finish when they conceded Abraham's 2-2 after yet another botch by a rearguard that has conceded at least one goal for 15 consecutive days;

For a team that still has the Scudetto on their shirts, it's a fine record that we turn over to president De Laurentiis. Market sources say he is interested not only in Conte, but also in Stefano Pioli. We don t know what Pioli thinks, but to go from the flames of the Devil to those of Vesuvius takes almost diabolical perseverance...

Those who, on the other hand, continue their virtuous cycle is Atalanta who, ever more launched, overcame Lecce with a penalty from Pasalic and a beautiful left-footed shot from Loockman. All is well at home to Gasp;