Marotta president of Inter: from Pirlo-Pogba to Calhanoglu and… The (low cost) shots that made history

Inter, Beppe Marotta president in the new era of Oaktree

Inter officially entered the Oaktree era with a turning point that certainly made the fans happy: Beppe Marotta elected president. Who better than him? The man who has already brought two championships to the Nerazzurri side of the Naviglio and who is unanimously considered the best manager in Italian football.

A choice that is a guarantee for the future. In the football of the sheikhs and great magnates (Manchester City, PSG first and foremost…), of Real Madrid galactic (Kylian Mbapp is Florentino Perez’s latest ‘whim’…) or the very rich Premier League (where the ‘poorest’ club earns as much from TV rights as the top Italians), the Marotta formula has been successful over the years (decades to be precise) with often low cost purchases that later proved to be formidable in the field. And in some cases then resold for its weight in gold (Pogba, Lukaku).

Inter, CEO Marotta had already closed Taremi and Zielinski

Waiting for Marotta’s future moves as Inter president (with Taremi and Zielinski already taken by… Marotta CEO in the past months and the Lautaro’s renewal is being defined), let’s look back some of the greatest shots of his career.

Here is Beppe Marotta, a manager, a profound knowledge of football and a great manager who made the fortune of all the clubs he worked for.

Maniero (with Recoba): Marotta’s Venezia put on a show

Let’s start from the early 90swhen, as director of Ravenna, he took the team away from Torino co-owned by a young Italian talent: Christian Vieri. Five years as manager at Venezia? Promotion to Serie A and a fantastic salvation with an attacking duo that the Lagoon still remembers with much love: Pippo Maniero and Alvaro Recoba (The Stooped arrived on loan from Moratti’s Inter).

Marotta, from Cassano to Pazzini: Sampdoria as Champions

At Sampdoria – where he remained for eight years (from 2002 to 2010) – one of Beppe Marotta’s great masterpieces, with the team taken to Serie B (May 2002) and led until they qualified for the Champions League (at the end of the 2009/2010 season). In Sampdoria he was able to deliver Antonio Cassano (outgoing from Real Madrid) and compose an offensive tandem that is lethal for opposing defenses with Gianpaolo Pazzini tip.

Barzagli and Pirlo, Vidal and Pogba… Marotta’s invincible Juventus was low cost

The Juventus years were a triumph: he arrived in 2010 and remained until 2018, winning 7 consecutive championships (which began with Antonio Conte on the bench and then passed to Max Allegri). Beppe Marotta – with Fabio Paratici sporting director (who follows him after the years together with Sampdoria) – he built a team that was practically invincible in Italy and was also capable of reaching the Champions League final twice (2015 and 2017 against Barcelona and Real Madrid).

In January 2011 the first shot as a champion: Andrea Barzagliwhich will make up the unforgettable BBC (with Leonardo Bonucci and Giorgio Chiellini in front of the shuttered Gigi Buffon) for 300 thousand euros (plus bonuses) from Wolfsburg.

Then two intuitions give life to the new Juve who will dominate in midfield in summer 2011: Andrea Pirlo (The Maestro taken on a free transfer from Milan when he was 32 years old and starred for 4 seasons in black and white) with Arturo “King Arthur” Vidal purchased from Bayer Leverkusen for 10.5 million euros (plus 2 of any bonuses).

That is also the summer of Stephan Lichtsteiner: 10 million to Lazio and the Swiss player will prove to be the best right-back in the championship for several years. In 2012 the joker drops: Juve takes the young man Paul Pogba released by Manchester United, while in 2013 the ace in the hole isApache Carlos Tevez arrived for just nine million euros (plus six in bonuses) from Manchester City.

Incoming shots, but also outgoing shots: in 2016 “The Octopus” Pogba himself is sold to Manchester Utd for 105 million euros. And at the same time Marotta’s Juventus takes Gonzalo Higuaín 90 million from Napoli (paying the exit clause that Pipita had with the Neapolitan club). In his Juventus era, among other things, champions of the caliber of also arrived on free transfers Lucius (2012), Fernando Llorente (2013) Kingsley Coman (2014), Sami Khedira (2015 from Real Madrid).

Inter, Marotta: not just Lukaku and Barella. Calhanoglu and the championship shots on a free transfer

In December 2018 Marotta landed at Inter – where he worked with sporting director Piero Ausilio – And in the following summer he takes Romelu Lukaku from Manchester United: Big Rom it costs 74 million euros, the most expensive purchase in the history of the Nerazzurri club, but it repays them with an absolute leading role in the 2020 scudetto (Antonio Conte on the bench) and with a 115 million euro transfer to Chelsea (the most profitable in Italian football). More: a year later he will return to Milan for just eight million on loan. A masterpiece.

Not just Lukaku. Beppe Marotta is the man who leads Nicolò Barella from Cagliari to Inter in 2019 (37 million between initial loan and redemption, plus 12 bonuses: today he is worth at least 80) and takes Hakan Calhanoglu at the end of his contract with Milan (summer 2021, the Turkish midfielder leaves the Rossoneri side to move to the Nerazzurri side of Naviglio).

There are many shots that built a winning Inter capable of reaching the Champions League final a year ago: let’s remember the 4 million for a key player in the defense as he turned out to be Francesco Acerbi (2022) or the free transfer arrivals of Henrikh Mkhitaryan (2022) e Marcus Thuram (summer 2023) from Borussia Mönchengladbach. But we want to talk about André Onana? The Cameroonian goalkeeper signed as a free agent on 1 July 2022 (by Ajax) and sold a year later for 52.5 million (plus 5 million bonus) to Manchester United (choosing Yann Sommer as the new defender of the Nerazzurri goal, paying him 6 million euros to Bayern Munich). And, as was said above, with Taremi-Zielinski arriving in Milan, the story continues…