The fourth day of the groups is staged between today and tomorrow: an important junction for Milan, Juventus, Inter and Napoli
Napoli almost qualified, Milan and Inter in full swing, Juve in trouble, but in the game. Halfway through the group stage, with three days to play, Serie A pursues the utopia of a full, 4 out of 4 in the second round. Almost a month before the World Cup without Italy, en plein would be an answer.
On Saturday against Juve, Milan played the game they should have set up in London against Chelsea on Wednesday. At Stamford Bridge the extra man in midfield, Pobega or whoever for him, would have taken the pressure off Bennacer and Tonali, faced by Loftus-Cheek and Kovacic and stressed by the movements of Mason Mount and Sterling behind them, in a hypothetical land of nobody. It is true, Juve is not a reliable test these days, Chelsea are several floors above, but we believe that Stefano Pioli has made the best of the London beating (3-0). He understood the difficulties of the team and corrected its set-up, added substance. At Stamford Bridge Milan “gave” Chelsea a player, De Ketelaere having no influence on the trocar. So it seems that tonight Pioli re-proposes the 4-3-3 on Saturday, with Krunic in place of Pobega. Even if it were 4-2-3-1, the concept would not change, behind Giroud a drummer would play, not a violinist. Krunic in England had played as a right winger, in a role that belongs to him little, although the Slovenian is a versatile type. De Ketelaere’s injury relieves Pioli from the embarrassment of another exclusion of the Belgian who cost a lot but does not blossom. Green light to the inspiration and accelerations of Diaz, between the right wing and the trocar. The classification of the group is compact, ranging from five points from Salzburg to three from Dinamo Zagreb, passing through four from Chelsea and Milan. A win would be equivalent to a mortgage on the second round; a draw would refer to the last two races, more than affordable. Attention to the returning Hernandez: if Theo had been in London, James would not have “bullied” the left-handed side of Milan.
Remember Hapoel Be’er Sheva, the Israeli team that defeated Inter twice in the 2016-17 Europa League, first leg with Frank de Boer on the bench (2-0 at San Siro) and back with Stefano Pegs coach (3-2 in Israel). Nothing is taken for granted in today’s globalized football, it cannot even be excluded that Maccabi Haifa will rage on the Juventus crisis. A defeat and a draw, however, would be unacceptable, would make Massimiliano Allegri’s position unsustainable and would force the coach himself to look inside. We do not want to believe that Juve in Haifa will end Inter Milan with Be’er Sheva, if only because they won 3-1 in Turin last week. Absolute need for another success against Maccabi to water the qualification hopes. Juve are last in the group together with the Israelis and four points from Psg and Benfica. A draw in Haifa would be tantamount to defeat and would be nearly fatal. Massimiliano Allegri is confident in the talent of Angel Di Maria, who is out against Milan because he is disqualified. The return of the Argentine pushes Arkadiusz Milik to the bench, the double center forward formula – which here and there is not displeased – is downgraded to a reserve or emergency solution. Juve is going through one of the most delicate phases in its history: eighth in the league, seven points from fourth place, and at risk of elimination from the Europe that counts. The technical failure – missed round of 16 in the Champions League and disappointing to the point of staying out of the next CL – would widen the economic hole in the balance sheet and force the company to the umpteenth recapitalization and refoundation. A year zero scenario.
Tomorrow, in the return match against Ajax, a draw will be enough for Napoli to enter the second round two days early: in this case, an extraordinary result, unforeseeable this summer, when the farewells to Insigne, Mertens, Koulibaly, Ospina and Fabian Ruiz seemed to herald a tiring generational change. Luciano Spalletti was very good at reconverting Napoli. Kvaratskhelia does not explain everything or enough. A player alone does not change anything immediately, even Diego Maradona on his debut in blue made the team turn around: his first Napoli, in the 1984-85 season, came eighth in Serie A and left the Italian Cup in the round of 16. In the rapid reconstruction of today’s Napoli we recognize the hand of Spalletti, a technician with almost thirty years of experience behind him. Three decades in which Spalletti has never anchored himself to the same idea of football. Spalletti has been updated, evolved, questioned. He started in the Sacchi era and has pushed up to today, the Guardiola era. He has always pursued the future – sometimes with contempt of danger, as in Rome with Totti – and he has never taken refuge in the past. October will never be a month of balances, the final accounts are made in the spring, but this first phase of the Champions League of Napoli, unless a maddening from tomorrow evening onwards, will remain for future memory as a successful example of change. For now, three wins in a row, 13 goals scored and two conceded, against Liverpool, Rangers Glasgow and Ajax. An intense and European game. The exceptional 6-1 in Amsterdam, in the stadium dedicated to Johan Cruijff. Good Spalletti to compose the mosaic and good Giuntoli, the market man, to find the right pieces.
It is useless to attempt unlikely last-minute transformations, to envision the conquest of the Camp Nou through good play and domination. Tomorrow evening in Barcelona Inter will do well to play a match of resistance and restart, as in the spring of 2010, when the coach was José Mourinho and on the pitch he danced to qualify for the final in Madrid. Each club has its own soul and the spirit of Inter is more devoted to practice than to aesthetics. Inter will find a furious environment for the alleged referee errors of the first leg. She will be charged with her head down and with the refinement of Xavi’s game, an only apparent contradiction. To simplify: Barça will put their head and heart into it. There will be no shortage of spaces to fill, in its vastness the Camp Nou lends itself to counter-escapes. We will have to wait for the right wave and ride it to the end. A victory would open the doors to the second round; a peer would leave great possibilities. Inter be themselves, without being ashamed. A red thread with the 2010 epic could be André Onana, Cameroonian like Samuel Eto’o, one of the key men of that evening in April 2010. Eto’o immersed himself in depth in the cause, to the point of sacrificing himself with conviction in the role of added full-back, given the numerical inferiority determined by the expulsion of Thiago Motta for a contact emphasized by Busquets, still there in his place, in the heart of the Blaugrana midfield. Onana will have to guarantee the ordinary interventions and those two-three extraordinary parades that are inevitable on nights like this. If he succeeds, it will be Camp Cameroon again as in 2010, when Inter between Barcelona and Madrid, where they played in the final against Bayern, won the Champions League, the last Italian team to do so.
October 11, 2022 (change October 11, 2022 | 09:16)
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