Bias... I mean, Icardi didn't have much of a choice when he chose that message: "addio" could have been more appropriate all things considered, but the word sounds brutal and almost provokative, all by itself. "Arrivederci" feels like a menace right now, but it's the more diplomatic option for a goodbye.
As I said, I can understand why someone like Icardi sees himself as interista and why he would have never left the city of Milano and Inter as a club, under normal circumstances. We can guess a lot about his character after years and a few anecdotes, and he had to give up on a reality in which he became the undisputed star and leave a place where both him and Wanda felt "at home", like they could do as they pleased and without serious consequences.
And with consequences I'm not really talking about Icardi being disliked by most of his teammates (that doesn't seem true at all, quite the contrary), or the club and some players being irritated by Wanda (“If he wants, Icardi can bring guys in and get them out of the club just by raising one finger", or “Perisic asked to leave Inter? Maybe he has personal problems”).
I'm talking more about the extreme "volatility" that characterized Inter's environment in recent times and the contradictions of a team built around a "catalyst" like Icardi, a team which experienced too many seasons of mediocrity and almost resigned to drastic up-and-downs, despite great moments and the rise to CL football.
We had to endure the soap opera about our former captain and his contract renewal basically every year, on and off the pitch, and quite a few games were influenced by various controversies regarding him.
We got used to a group of players who showed a tendency to lose focus and confidence, we watched winter collapses and soulless performances in Spring and even heard stuff like “it's true, we gave up before the end of the season” and “yes, mentally we pulled the plug”.
And we can add to the picture traditional psychodramas like Inter-Sassuolo from two years ago and the pathetic ending of last season.
I sure wish we could have seen Icardi playing with better teammates on the pitch and proper leaders inside the dressing room in the last few years, but also a management capable of handling his complicated persona and backing up the coach against the "noise of the enemies" coming from the media.
However it's just a what-if scenario, because the unprofessional behaviour shown by Icardi after being stripped of that fateful armband had already set a point of no return and the perfect opportunity to try and cut ties with a certain past.
That's probably what Ausilio and Spalletti tried to do with the swap Icardi/Higuain+cash, early in the "Summer of Modric" of 2018, if we believe not only the words by Wanda, but also hints by Marotta himself back in December and other respectable sources.
And, as Firmino said, Walter Sabatini was probably entertaining similar ideas one year before. Recently our former director was asked about the drama that unfolded at Inter during the last few months and he joked about it, suggesting that Icardi should “find a boyfriend” for Wanda “so that she can step away from Mauro, who’s a wonderful lad and a loving father”.
Meanwhile, “arrivederci”.
Sometimes I have trouble understanding your posts, but somehow its still fun to read and I cant help but thank every post, keep it up.
You're welcome. Sooner or later, I'll be able to condense pages of thoughts in Italian into a single haiku in English: that's my goal.
Seriously, this is the reference I made about Leonardo:
http://forzainterforums.com/showthread.php?11814-Mauro-Icardi&p=1801411&viewfull=1#post1801411
Leonardo can do everything and its contrary, as we know. And he's aware of what Icardi can bring both on (superbly) and off he pitch.
The reference I made about “Morattism" and the old way to manage star players and the club in general was quite ambiguous and stereotypical, I admit it. There is a clear and obvious discontinuity between Moratti and Suning, and it's evident with Icardi, but there are also some vague analogies and curious recurrences between the two different eras, ironically enough. However, I am a fence-sitter and it feels like kicking the hornets nest right now, so I prefer to be careful.
[I'll just throw a virtual hand grenade from the top of that fence: "Luiz Nazario De Lima to LGI". I am also a football revisionist.]
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