The Downfall Of Inter

.h.

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I have a six hour wait in an airport, so I thought I'd write this... Pajo you can 'thank' me later ;)

I want to discuss, briefly, the downfall of Inter. I think too many people try to find a simple, singular cause for the issues we see, and like to heap the blame on this single-mindedly without consideration for potential other causes. As with everything real-world, it's never that simple. So, let's delve into some recent history, and talk about it, starting with the 2006 Scudetto...

One is entitled to assume that I highlight 2006 as it signifies the real first starting point of our recent successes, and thus, our downfalls. You would infact be wrong. 2006 is interesting, infact, because new accounting rules came into force (partly because of the early 2000 scandal that rocked Italian football where clubs would trade young players at inflated fees - i.e. We'll swap these 3 youngsters for your 3 youngsters, but peg them at book values of several million each, showing each club a huge net profit when infact none existed).

These accounting changes report an 83 million euro loss for Inter in 2006 - bolstered only by the sale of the Inter brand to a Moratti and Inter subsidiary for 50 million euros (purely an accounting trick). Year on year it gets worse, as player amoritisation (among other things) begin to weigh heavily on Inter. Losses peak in 2007 at 204 million euros - indeed this was 117% more than we even earned that year! Wages in this year alone correspond to 91% of revenue - much higher than the UEFA recommended ~55%.

This year also marks the beginning of Inter's attempts to decrease expenditure. Many people only associate recent years - i.e. post treble - with budget reductions, but in fact it is noticeably with transfer policy at the time, barring the year Mancini left with Mourinho to take over, with the three failed signings of Mancini, Quaresma and Muntari. Salaries, however, for this period continued to increase, from 141m in 2006 to a peak of 234m in 2010. This is before considering the extra black hole of 'Other expenses' which, as far as I know, no one has made much ability to discern into the constituents of.

Five year contracts (i.e. Chivu, Stankovic, Milito post-treble, etc) represented a huge bane for Inter, resulting in players being paid far too much, for far past their serviceable life. Indeed, the losses for the five years 2006-2011 amount to a staggering 665 million euros.

Post-treble budget cutting has reduced our wages from a mountainous 234 million euros to something more in the lines of 120 million euros - halving them. Assuming the 2009 income was true - a year in which we did poorly in the CL - we would only be spending approximately 60% of our revenue on wages, a far more manageable number.

The high wages has infact been a two fold issue - particularly when coupled with the poor transfer policy of the club. After the treble, offers were coming in from everywhere for all of our best players. Maicon had bids of 20 million euros turned down from Real and City, Milito was being offered 25+ to go to Real, Sneijder was being offered 30 million from United, and Cesar was rumoured for 20 million moves to Arsenal, United, and City. Instead, what happened with these transfers? A total of approximately 10 million euros was recovered - rather than the ~100 million euros being offered.

One of the fatal strategic flaws - one which I find unbelievable to this day - is that, knowing full well of our impending financial difficulties - even the year we WON the treble, we only made 226 million euros, with wages of 235 million (!) - we signed players to more expensive, and longer, contracts. The legacy of that was being felt over the last couple of years, and still is to do this, with generous pay outs for players like Stankovic, Cesar, etc to cancel their contracts.

The question I've never been able to answer is why? Why, when knowing full well the financial difficulties the club were in - and with no obvious attempts to significantly increase revenue (winning the CL every year would not be enough to pay the wage bill, let alone the other expenses blackhole) - would you extend contracts and give out pay raises?

The story of the pay raises continues, as we then have to look at what this meant on the transfer market. Players were on wages comparable to clubs with twice - if not more - our revenue, which put them in the position of demanding record breaking salaries to move to, for example, United, or Real. We soon found ourselves in the position where no one wanted to pay top dollar for aging stars who were not performing to the same level, and who were commanding salaries comparable to the greatest players in the world.

Which takes us to the next step in our story.

Sales and Releases

Somewhere, somehow, a lightbulb went off, and people realised that FFP needed to be dealt with. About five years too late. Immediate and substantial efforts were made to reduce costs - our current wage cap of approximately 2.5mil euros a season would be 'low' for a bench warmer in our treble era - and part of this meant desperate attempts to offload the very players who were once so valuable, now valueless. Contracts with, for example, Cesar were cancelled with a large lump-sum payout just to allow him to move to another club - who, incidentally, paid him the exact same over the same period of time as Inter were originally offering his reduced contract extension anyway. From potentially a 20 million euro gain, to a 2.5 million euro loss within two seasons.

The meagre transfer budget that Inter had was also squandered, with management choosing a quantity over quality approach. Of the dozens of players signed post-treble, how many remain at Inter? How many can be called successes? The management, as a legacy of the "good times", lacked faith in younger players who showed perhaps the ability to compete at least to the same level as the failing so-called 'stars' the club had signed in the ensuing years. Good young players who could have made up squad numbers - Caldirola, Donati, Faraoni - were shipped out for far-too-little, when they could have been utilised at Inter instead of, for example, Chivu, Stankovic, Mariga - for much less money.

Multiple managers - and their compensation packages - have not aided the case either. A new manager, with a new system, comes in and imposes it and restructures the club. Several games later, he's gone, and someone else with different ideas arrives. Player trading for the sake of accommodating the coach has cost Inter substantial amounts of money, and invoked huge losses on several players - Belfodil just one recent example!

The question, then, is who to blame? Without dispute the players have underperformed since the treble - even the best players don't look like they are performing well. The worst players, on the other hand, look so shamelessly out of their depth that one wonders which academy decided to award them professional contracts. But is it as simple as just blaming the players? When players fail to perform under so many managers after so many years, one can't help but look past an arbitrary name at the club. One must look deeper. There is, it shames me to say, a stinking attitude at Inter. A loser's mentality. A reactive one, not a proactive one. One formed by mediocre minds imitating greatness, but unable to see the reasoning of the choices of genius.

The mentality is not the only issue, either. Mediocre direction, from mediocre directors, is a large source of error too. Why someone like Branca, who clearly has no eye for spotting talent, is allowed to continue in his role, I have no idea. Why someone as bipolar as our previous chairman, between his 'year 0' and 'scudetto' polar opposites, is allowed to be so influential, I don't know.

Sadly, there are too many things at stake here to simply say 'Fuck Jonathan', 'Fuck Mazzarri', or 'Fuck Branca'. For me, though, a company is only as good as it's chairman. And when you are led by a lame duck, your results will be those of a lame duck. Moratti's inability is the biggest systematic source of failure for me at Inter - and whilst, not to be hypocritical, there are many sources of blames for the various aspects (tacticians airing their dirty laundry in public, ill-timed red cards in crucial matches for the scudetto and to stay in the champions league, refereeing errors, unbelievably naive and useless tacticians, poor transfers, among a host of others) - the easiest way I can simplify this is to blame Moratti. But don't be ignorant of the role of every single director and their respective failings.

This - I believe at least - is why Erick Thohir has come out in the last few days to state that Inter will take a few years to build up, and that he isn't a superman. Because when you need to replace a rotten tree entirely, you have to dig right down into it's roots and rip them out. And overhauling the management structure of a club like Inter will take more than a few months.

This somewhat lengthy article now leads to one place...

The Measures of Success

The logical extension is now to ask how we can qualify whether Thohir is being successful or not. For me it is quite straightforward. These overweight, burdened contracts that I have mentioned all need to be finished by the end of the season. There are 8 players up for expiration at the end of this season, and I don't want any of them to stay. It pains me to say, as the last of the treble legends are included in some of those 8 players, as well as many fan favourites, but the price they cost do not represent value for money.

The next stage, then, is the handling of the directorships. It's clear to me that people like Branca need the sack. I personally am a fan (As you will know) of our youth sector, and to that extent I do not want to see changes there (Samaden etc) - but the most responsible directors need the sack.

Aside from sacking people, there are two more clear milestones we should accomplished to judge success. We desperately need revenue increase, and to miss out on Nainggolan as a potentially key part of the relaunch of Indo-Inter is desperately disappointing for me, and we desperately need a new stadium, with the obvious champions league participation.


These are the metrics by which, for the next few years, I will be judging Thohir, and Inter, and I can only hope we hit some of them.
 

Caecuban

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At the time of all the treble contract extensions, money wasn't an issue as Saras was profitable and FFP was not into effect (I wonder if it will ever be). After spending over a billion on Inter and finally managing to win everything, it doesn't exactly surprise me that Moratti would renew most contracts with bonuses. Why try to cash in 100m in transfers if you invested 1 bi to have this team in the first place?


But then market conjuncture (mainly squeeze in refining margins) made Saras present losses and the treble squad didn't win and everything went wrong.


Now it is clear that we should have sold Sneijder, JC, Lucio but this is easy to say this after knowing what happened.
 

.h.

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At the time of all the treble contract extensions, money wasn't an issue as Saras was profitable and FFP was not into effect (I wonder if it will ever be). After spending over a billion on Inter and finally managing to win everything, it doesn't exactly surprise me that Moratti would renew most contracts with bonuses. Why try to cash in 100m in transfers if you invested 1 bi to have this team in the first place?


But then market conjuncture (mainly squeeze in refining margins) made Saras present losses and the treble squad didn't win and everything went wrong.


Now it is clear that we should have sold Sneijder, JC, Lucio but this is easy to say this after knowing what happened.

Saras was not profitable, it hasnt been profitable since it listed on the stock market. Infact in that time it's only gone down 85%. FFP was not into effect, but it was clearly on the horizon - and indeed contract renewals starting that year - INCLUDING the ones we extended after the treble - started counting TOWARDS FFP, whereas prior to that, they were not.

This was *all* plain sight, many people called it at the time, and it was obvious to anyone with half a brain, in my opinion, and I think the facts stated above back that up.

- - - Updated - - -

just to add on - FFP was entirely agreed in September 2009, so it was entirely predictable what would occur.


Checking Saras statements, their EPS has been negative since 2009 - they stopped paying dividends in 2006 (my apologies, but for Inter's purpose it means the exact same thing as it was the Saras dividends that funded Moratti's spending pre-2006).

Also note: source material, all the Saras statements available here: http://www.saras.it/saras/pages/investors/annualreport
 

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There are a few ways to look at it, easiest question to ask is: Does the financial gain of selling a certain player outweigh the potential losses of not doing as well the season after? At the time, the idea of using Sneijder correctly and aiming for success could have seemed more profitable than selling him and pocketing the money.


Personally, I think that a club should be run as a pure business in all ways except for transfers. I believe in spending big on players and letting their (long) contracts dwindle out, don't rip my squad apart for money, just do some better marketing and shit. Of course, Inter is not even remotely in a position to start thinking like that, we need to grab money wherever we can get it, but I do hope that one day we can get into that mindset.
 

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Saras was not profitable, it hasnt been profitable since it listed on the stock market. Infact in that time it's only gone down 85%. FFP was not into effect, but it was clearly on the horizon - and indeed contract renewals starting that year - INCLUDING the ones we extended after the treble - started counting TOWARDS FFP, whereas prior to that, they were not.

This was *all* plain sight, many people called it at the time, and it was obvious to anyone with half a brain, in my opinion, and I think the facts stated above back that up.

Even if they stopped paying dividends, they were still presenting profits:

Profit for 2008 = 61mEUR
Profit for 2009 = 78m EUR
Losses for 2010 = -110m EUR

Also, Moratti wouldn't tear apart the supposed best team in the world because there was FFP in a long term horizon after spending that much money.



Of course, the renewals made a year later (as Chivu's) are just batshit insane.
 

.h.

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There are a few ways to look at it, easiest question to ask is: Does the financial gain of selling a certain player outweigh the potential losses of not doing as well the season after?


Personally, I think that a club should be run as a pure business in all ways except for transfers. I believe in spending big on players and letting their (long) contracts dwindle out, make my money off of marketing and shit. Of course, Inter is not even remotely in a position to start thinking like that, we need to grab money wherever we can get it, but I do hope that one day we can get into that mindset.

Well, that's the fundamental question. And my flagship example is Samuel Eto'o. He scored 37 goals and carried us to the CL in 10/11, we sold him for basically 10m book gain + 20m/year salary savings. Was that worth it? We missed out on the Champions League - which in itself is like a guaranteed 40+ mil for the EL - which is only worth 10mil IF YOU WIN IT. So, in that case, certainly not.


Also, you talk about marketing. What marketing? What does Stankovic bring us in the CL year, or Chivu? Or Muntari? What does, for example, Cambiasso bring us now in marketing? Marketing only works when guys are on top of the world - look at the (as a point, MANDATORY sponsorship contracts) that came out of the CL - Sneijder was on billboards where I lived. For about 6 months. Marketing is extremely flippant, I'm sure I don't need to tell you, and there's not a penny to be made from someone who is out of his prime...
- - - Updated - - -

Even if they stopped paying dividends, they were still presenting profits:

Profit for 2008 = 61mEUR
Profit for 2009 = 78m EUR
Losses for 2010 = -110m EUR

Also, Moratti wouldn't tear apart the supposed best team in the world because there was "FFP in the horizon" after spending that much money.



Of course, the renewals made a year later (as Chivu's) are just batshit insane.
I'm sorry, but I disagree. FFP is the only important thing - our losses in one year alone are enough to exclude us - so sadly we simply have NO CHOICE but to comply with FFP. Even with the *most* generous UEFA-allowance-schemes, we will not be eligible for Europe next year (not that it's going to be a worry !). For the year after the treble, we would have been at least at budget-neutral if we'd sold Maicon and Sneijder. Instead, we registered something like a 90 million euro loss.

Anyway, as a minor point - though not important - the result for 2009 was an adjusted EPS of -0.06 - which infact was greater than 2010. Doesn't matter, though, makes no difference to the argument. The fundamental was the dividend, which was our primary source of income (for Inter) - which stopped I believe in 06.

edit; On further searching, last dividends were paid in 09, for the 08 financial year. Again my mistake - though that's our last decent transfer window (!!)
 

wambam

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Well, that's the fundamental question. And my flagship example is Samuel Eto'o. He scored 37 goals and carried us to the CL in 10/11, we sold him for basically 10m book gain + 20m/year salary savings. Was that worth it? We missed out on the Champions League - which in itself is like a guaranteed 40+ mil for the EL - which is only worth 10mil IF YOU WIN IT. So, in that case, certainly not.


Also, you talk about marketing. What marketing? What does Stankovic bring us in the CL year, or Chivu? Or Muntari? What does, for example, Cambiasso bring us now in marketing? Marketing only works when guys are on top of the world - look at the (as a point, MANDATORY sponsorship contracts) that came out of the CL - Sneijder was on billboards where I lived. For about 6 months. Marketing is extremely flippant, I'm sure I don't need to tell you, and there's not a penny to be made from someone who is out of his prime...

Well, I said "marketing and shit" mainly so I wouldn't have to go into specifics, since I'm not a businessman. All I wanted to say was that there are lots of ways to make money, draw new fans in, people are easy to manipulate. If we're talking about players though, Pandev brings legions of Macedonians with him wherever he goes, Eto'o pretty much carries all of Africa by himself (or maybe shares with Drogba), Maicon was a name on everyone's lips after the World Cup, we had a marketable squad.

Anyway, that's not the part I care about. Ultimately I just want us to get away from having to trust transfers as our main way of making our money, let the media mogul in charge of the club figure out how to do it, just don't tell me in 3 years' time that we need to sell a few starters to fund one signing.
 

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Well, I said "marketing and shit" mainly so I wouldn't have to go into specifics, since I'm not a businessman. All I wanted to say was that there are lots of ways to make money, draw new fans in, people are easy to manipulate. If we're talking about players though, Pandev brings legions of Macedonians with him wherever he goes, Eto'o pretty much carries all of Africa by himself (or maybe shares with Drogba), Maicon was a name on everyone's lips after the World Cup, we had a marketable squad.

Anyway, that's not the part I care about. Ultimately I just want us to get away from having to trust transfers as our main way of making our money, let the media mogul in charge of the club figure out how to do it, just don't tell me in 3 years' time that we need to sell a few starters to fund one signing.
I think you over-estimate the amount of money we can make from marketing. Bayern - whose marketig is driven primarily by local fans - is the world's leader making something like 100 million euros a year from it. We, on the other hand, make something more like 20 million (I cant check the numbers now but will soon). I think 30-40 million a year is a reasonable estimate for Inter, until we start to get sustained success to push up shirt sponsors and stuff like that. Dont forget, either, for some big players, they will take HUGE cuts of their image rights (if not entirely), so its really not as straight forward as one would like.

Realistically, the cure to our problems would be a 20 mil a year increase to commercial revenues (shirt sales, etc, but mainly driven by sponsorship), and 30-40 mil from the stadium, coupled to sustained success on the pitch getting into the CL. That probably boosts us from like 180mil/season to 280-300mil. But that's a long way off.
 

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Perhaps I'm overestimating, perhaps you're underestimating, it's hard to get into this conversation while avoiding in-depth economic discussions. We can have this sort of conversation in full a few years from now, if my career goes in the path I plan on it going and I learn more about businesses. Until then, I'm happy with just being a tactician.

Speaking of tactics...
A big part of our downfall. We won titles on the basis of being a physical team, a direct team, and a team that was comfortable in most phases of play. Moratti seemed to want the romanticized swashbuckling attack, so he hired a Spanish dude with the briefing of "play tiki-taka" (even though it's not even Rafa's style, so basically Moratti's racist), he hired the tactically inept Leonardo to play his 0-0-10 formation, the trend continued with Gasperini, then he overcompensated for how bad our defence had gotten with Ranieri. None of these guys got the players they wanted (I don't count Leonardo in anything) either, because they were all temp hires. Yay.
Basically, took a winning team that won by running itself into the ground the season before, kept the squad the same but gave it to another coach who wanted two minor adjustments and didn't get them, then got him to play a style that neither suited the squad nor him.


As it turns out, I do hold Moratti at fault. I hate playing the blame game, but in this case it's important to know where the problems lie so the management can fix them.
 

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Very good read!


For the lazy:
tl;dr:
Sack Branca.
 

Pajo

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I have too much respect for Moratti to bash him, but you guys are right. It was nice read from everyone in here, not the basic bashing people tend to make.

As I've been saying since 2010, it's not anyone fault, but everyone's, from top to bottom, from the president to the janitors. However, if you look deeper in that, it's the president who set the club that way and ran it, not the other way around.

Economically, yes, Moratti have spent less, but i ca't fault him about that. SARAS has fallen for 89% (?) in the past 6 years, which is HUGE downfall for a company of that size, or any company of that matter. But it's not ONLY the economics. I believe the mistake was made a decade earlier. Moratti knew Inter doesn't own a stadium and it's huge part of the revenue, and yet, he didn't do shit about it, but wanted instant success by buying expensive player with no proper scouting or need of the club. That's 1. Another thing is what you guys mentioned, seeing the players as his family and not as employees, giving them huge contract, long ones and expensive ones, that have eventually bite us in the ass.

Now, that's from economic point of view. What happens with the rest? I believe Branca, Ausilio and co are all GOOD at what they SHOULD do. But the problem is, they don't do THAT, but something else. Everyone in this club does EVERYTHING, and with that everything, they actually do NOTHING. The communication between the people in the club is awful. Of course, we do not know what's going on behind the scenes, but it's kinda obvious when they go out and 3 people state 3 different things in the media :lol: That's why I always hated that "FUUUUCK BRANCAAAA" shit. The guy is sent to get a player the coach wants with Mundari and 6 mils, how he is at fault for not getting the guy? Or now, with D'Ambrosio, isn't it easier for him to say, "you want 3 mils? Fine, take 4 and give him"? But no, we don't even have 1-2 mils extra to spend from the real value of a player.

Then, it comes to the players and coaches. We get a player for a certain coach who isn't really trusted from the start, and when he is sacked, we get another coach who has no use of that player. Flops like pereira will always be there, he was VERY good in Porto, here looks like headless chicken, so I can't really blame them spending 10 mils for him. Just one example. Good players misused, in shitty tactics, surrounded by tons of managerial changes, do you guys think it's EASY for them? I believe 90% of our players aren't playing at full of their potential because of that. I also believe, if you play well in THIS Inter, you'll play 50% better in another.

And lastly, the loser mentality of the club. We, atm, doesn't seem to have big club mentality. And I also believe, not only the management and the media, but the fans have ALSO part of the loser mentality. Why is that? Well, the moment we appoint a coach, he is under HUGE pressure from everyone to get us to CL, or shit like that. If you really want to start a project, with limited resources, you don't do that. You give freedom and time, you have patience with that coach. Let them play like they want, who they want, even if it means being mediocre. You'll get mediocre anyway, with all that pressure for instant success. Look at Roma, who thought they'll get this good? But Garcia doesn't have the pressure, their goal was to build good team that can compete in the following seasons, and without that pressure, they play MUCH better. Even the sole success will come earlier than expected. Not to mention the communication between the people in the club, how they are all set up and they all KNOW what to do. They are coherent which is most important. Same goes with Dormund who were on the verge of bankrupt just 10 years ago, Bayer, United back in the time when they signed SAF, Atletico with Cholo, and so on... Not many people can cope with the pressure that our management, fans, media, and FIGC put them under. That's why no matter the start, most of them lose it eventually and go to play ultra defensive football, because they are afraid and under pressure.

Oh and, I almost forgot, the elderly players that have TOO much to say in the dressing room tbh... THe coach is not in charge - Cambi, Zanetti & co are. Cambi for instance, I believe he is playing better than most of you rate, but the problem with him is different. He wants to be incharge, he wants to play every game, even tho he doesn't have the legs for it, and of course, earns way too much. Until their wage, and ROLES aren't change, we can't do much more...

That all being said, yes, to sum up, it's mainly Moratti fault, even tho as said above, I hate playing the blame game. This club needs changes, but from top to bottom. New faces in the management, good hierarchy, clear given job to the stuff, PATIENCE from the management and the fans, good coach and few new players. That's a start, start that can at least get us to CL. Once we get to CL level, we should built a stadium which is the most important way to increase our revenue, cut our costs, and build on reputation. And they should start with this right away, even if that means no CL for this and next year. We shouldn't think that straight forward, but look more into the future. This club won't exist for the next 3, 4, 5 years... It will exists for way longer and things will get better, much better, maybe even sooner then we think (no matter how bad it looks atm).

That's it from me.. I believe everything else would be superfluous.
 

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Now, that's from economic point of view. What happens with the rest? I believe Branca, Ausilio and co are all GOOD at what they SHOULD do. But the problem is, they don't do THAT, but something else. Everyone in this club does EVERYTHING, and with that everything, they actually do NOTHING. The communication between the people in the club is awful. Of course, we do not know what's going on behind the scenes, but it's kinda obvious when they go out and 3 people state 3 different things in the media :lol: That's why I always hated that "FUUUUCK BRANCAAAA" shit. The guy is sent to get a player the coach wants with Mundari and 6 mils, how he is at fault for not getting the guy? Or now, with D'Ambrosio, isn't it easier for him to say, "you want 3 mils? Fine, take 4 and give him"? But no, we don't even have 1-2 mils extra to spend from the real value of a player.

I don't quite agree with this. Branca and Ausilio aren't completely at fault, and they certainly don't have an easy environment to work in, but our transfer policy has largely been a failure. I don't blame our mercato team (indicating Branca and Ausilio and everyone else involved) when our coach makes a specific request like Muntari or when someone highly rated like Pereira flops, but even with all the excuses and the pressure they work in they simply aren't doing a good job. They have absolutely no sense of the long term and buy players just for the current manager without thinking of what might happen next. There's an overemphasis placed on Serie A emphasis, unless it's an unproven young Argentine/Brazilian. We see other teams making astute and clever purchases to fill gaps in their squads, but almost nothing like that from Inter, and the blame for that must fall on the sporting director and his crew.

Then, it comes to the players and coaches. We get a player for a certain coach who isn't really trusted from the start, and when he is sacked, we get another coach who has no use of that player. Flops like pereira will always be there, he was VERY good in Porto, here looks like headless chicken, so I can't really blame them spending 10 mils for him. Just one example. Good players misused, in shitty tactics, surrounded by tons of managerial changes, do you guys think it's EASY for them? I believe 90% of our players aren't playing at full of their potential because of that. I also believe, if you play well in THIS Inter, you'll play 50% better in another.

Cut it how you want, but our players simply aren't good enough to consistently finish in CL spots. (And to think of our squad actually competing in CL...:lol:). Our management (whether it's Branca's fault or Ausilio's or Moratti's or a combination or whoever) simply haven't been good enough with recruitment. Sure, there have been some good ones. Kovacic is one for the future, Alvarez and Jonathan look like they could be good rotation players for a CL-quality squad, Handanovic has been solid. But overall, the quality of the squad has dropped severely. And that shouldn't happen.

And lastly, the loser mentality of the club. We, atm, doesn't seem to have big club mentality. And I also believe, not only the management and the media, but the fans have ALSO part of the loser mentality. Why is that? Well, the moment we appoint a coach, he is under HUGE pressure from everyone to get us to CL, or shit like that. If you really want to start a project, with limited resources, you don't do that. You give freedom and time, you have patience with that coach. Let them play like they want, who they want, even if it means being mediocre. You'll get mediocre anyway, with all that pressure for instant success. Look at Roma, who thought they'll get this good? But Garcia doesn't have the pressure, their goal was to build good team that can compete in the following seasons, and without that pressure, they play MUCH better. Even the sole success will come earlier than expected. Not to mention the communication between the people in the club, how they are all set up and they all KNOW what to do. They are coherent which is most important. Same goes with Dormund who were on the verge of bankrupt just 10 years ago, Bayer, United back in the time when they signed SAF, Atletico with Cholo, and so on... Not many people can cope with the pressure that our management, fans, media, and FIGC put them under. That's why no matter the start, most of them lose it eventually and go to play ultra defensive football, because they are afraid and under pressure.

I wouldn't call it a loser mentality (if you think about it it's the opposite – Moratti and the fans want an immediate return to winning ways), but the rest of this is gold. No manager is going to succeed when the president of the club is calling for the scudetto in October.
 

Pajo

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I don't quite agree with this. Branca and Ausilio aren't completely at fault, and they certainly don't have an easy environment to work in, but our transfer policy has largely been a failure. I don't blame our mercato team (indicating Branca and Ausilio and everyone else involved) when our coach makes a specific request like Muntari or when someone highly rated like Pereira flops, but even with all the excuses and the pressure they work in they simply aren't doing a good job. They have absolutely no sense of the long term and buy players just for the current manager without thinking of what might happen next. There's an overemphasis placed on Serie A emphasis, unless it's an unproven young Argentine/Brazilian. We see other teams making astute and clever purchases to fill gaps in their squads, but almost nothing like that from Inter, and the blame for that must fall on the sporting director and his crew.

Of course, isn't that pretty much the same what I said? Just didn't elaborate as much :) Signing such players, not thinking about the future and stuff, is actually a matter of that communication (or lack of it). As far as I'm concerned, if they want a player (Nainggolan) who isn't wanted by the coach (Mazzarri), and they didn't buy, they will be bashed (by the fans). You see, it's all kinda connected, and we will never be certain for anything, since we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. The media doesn't know that either.

Cut it how you want, but our players simply aren't good enough to consistently finish in CL spots. (And to think of our squad actually competing in CL...:lol:). Our management (whether it's Branca's fault or Ausilio's or Moratti's or a combination or whoever) simply haven't been good enough with recruitment. Sure, there have been some good ones. Kovacic is one for the future, Alvarez and Jonathan look like they could be good rotation players for a CL-quality squad, Handanovic has been solid. But overall, the quality of the squad has dropped severely. And that shouldn't happen.

Maybe, maybe not. I'm not saying that about ALL our players tho. Of course we need improvement. But i, nor you, can't really judge any player in this chaos, especially if they play bad. As I said, it's not easy for the players as well, with all that change, chaos, lack of consistency in pretty much every aspect.. I can also bet that most of them will play much better in more organized club.

And yes, the quality has dropped, but so is the finances. Of course, we as a team could've played MUCH better since the treble winning season. But that's not up to the players. I feel many of you are underrating our squad (not team - but squad), since we are playing shit. It's not only due to players. The issue is more than just that. If player plays well in this squad, i am 100% certain they will play even better in organized club, again, as stated above. :)

I wouldn't call it a loser mentality (if you think about it it's the opposite – Moratti and the fans want an immediate return to winning ways), but the rest of this is gold. No manager is going to succeed when the president of the club is calling for the scudetto in October.

Everybody wants to win, that doesn't make it different. Loser mentality in a sense - small club mentality. Big club in transition can ask to stay among the best, will aim for it, but won't ask to win or have instant success without fixing some other issues at first.
 

.h.

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I'm glad, at least, this provides food for thought.
 

Caecuban

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I believe 90% of our players aren't playing at full of their potential because of that. I also believe, if you play well in THIS Inter, you'll play 50% better in another.

This really bothers me.
 

Pajo

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2 years have passed, nothing's been changed. :eek:kay:

edit: or better yet, everything has changed. But same mentality, same issues, same bullshit.
 

Jane The Virgin

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Well so far, we have had just few games where we have played really good, i mean, games that have made me say "damn im proud of this team" even if we lost (like Napoli game), and the rest of the games, wins or loses have been all the same, 99% same tactics, same everything but different players.

I used to say that Handa was saving our ass the most, and most of the guys here would say no, its the teams merit that we are keeping a clean sheet, when in fact, all those games we didnt concede a goal, the opponent had at least 3 one-on-one chances, or 100% goal chances.

Anyway, imo, the reason for our downfall is, well, how do i put this... time? It was about to happen sooner or latter, i mean, even the games that we were winning before New Year, i still never got a clue of how are we winning them, we didnt have a system, we didnt have a starting core of 6/7 players, we didnt have nothing but luck and Handa.

First the one to blame is Mancini, and i feel like writing along post here, so ill give my best to keep it as clean as possible... I say Mancini is the first one, because he wanted players, he went above and beyond to get certain players, and yet never even tried to utilize them in the team. Im talking here about Melo, and no, i really dont care about his quality, i know that he sucks, but when a coach goes through the whole mercato to get a player, and barely uses him, thats not a serious coach in my eyes. Another thing is, he had time and time and time to spend with the last years squad, and in the summer when he decided to go for fullbacks, i was like "sure he saw that nagashit at his best day is just mediocre player who cant cross for shit and makes stupid mistakes in front of his own goal", but nah, we spend money on Telles used him for several games, but nah, he is not good enough so he went back to Naga. Like how in hell does one end up in a situation like this?

Another example that really pissed me off is his press conference today, where practically he said "its not my fault that eder is not scoring...", i mean, come on man, did you even saw Eder play for the team he used to? What kind of system he did play there? Why he scored so many goals, why this why that, yadda yadda? Did you even do a single research on the player or just saw on wiki that he had 15 games and 12 goals (or some crap like that) and jizzed your pants? And believe me im not defending a shit player like Eder, but its not his fault that he is not scoring, when he was bought for a sole purpose to score goals and yet benched? I really believe that Eder is maybe, and just maybe better than Manaj due to experience and shit, but worse than anyone of our forwards by kilometers. But i dont blame him, i really dont...

Also, players like Ljajic, who proved that can win a match by themselves, are not given enough room and space. Why buy him then? Why spend money on Ljajic or Jojo and then never use them? Or fucking Kdog man...

Mancio went for players in the most superficial way possible, without scouting single one of them, without spending time analyzing the squad and what it needs, and quite frankly i dont think he has that capacity to begin with.

If players like Ljajic, Jojo, Perisic, Kdog, Icardi, would start all the games no question asked, we would be much higher in the table, but that was never the case, if one game Ljajic won the game for us and made some superb plays with Jojo, the next game they would be benched to Biabia and Palacio, one of which would have the game of his life and start the next 5 games while benching Icardi and in the meantime Ljajic would be used as a 17 year old 90+ minute sub. Like come the fuck on man... who does this???

Another thing, for the players w spend the most money and th most time to get them, we barely used them and gave them the desrved chances and treatment. Im talking about Perisic and Kdog and Melo (and again, i dont wanna talk about his quality, but rather about the way mancio wanted him and yet...). They were never feeling as a part of the starting squad, nobody was/is for that matter, but whn you splash 30+ millions on a player at leeast give him all the starting games he needs to gain form and confidence and a bit of team chemistry with the rest of the players. Perisic was the longest buy, we went back and forth with Wolfsburg until we finally got him, and he wasnt treated like that kind of player, but more like someone that you buy for 1.2 millions with a 200k salary. As for Melo, i dont wanna repeat myself, but he was the DM mancio was dreaming for, and what did he do with him? bench him the whole fucking second part of the season... LO-FUKCING-L!

After all this nonsense comes the rotation bullcrap that i never got. Why in hell wouldnt he have a core/starting squad, and rotate the rest when someone is tired or injured? But rather, he rotates every single fucking game??? And no, not just with the players, but also formations, tactics, every single game there was a different shit going on, i never got our game and not in a good OMG_WE_ARECONFUSING_EVERYONE kinda way, but in the worst way possible.

Now, for the players. There are truly some players that dont deserve to wear our jersey, no matter how weak Inter is, there should be a bar. Players like Medel, Melo, Telles, Nagashit, Eder, Biabia, should never be part of our team. There is just nothing they offer. I myslef, with tons of fitness can fight more than Nagatomo/Medel and still offer shit to the team. This concerns the mentality and future of the club, not just this seasons downfall.

Another thing is some stupid personal mistakes of some players that cost us some games. 4 goals that at least 2 could've been avoided by Fiorentina that we conceded, a mistake by Handa.

Several red cards and fouls from Miranda, and penalties as well. That cost us some points as well.

Some missed chances in front of goal by perisic and ljajic too...

But these last several points are things that happen even to Barca and Real... So thats no the real reason for our downfall...


And yes browha, you ssaid that there cant be only one to blame, but in our case most of the fans agree that its Mancios and only Mancios fault that we are here.
 

cuba gooding

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Interesting note reading it now. Hopefully Jube are doing it currently. It appears they are going in this direction
 

Devious

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Crucial moments ahead in the next two months that’d decide the fate of Inter future. Will the Chinese undo their success and bring Inter back into another dark tunnel? Things aren’t looking good and we might see more long posts in this thread.
 
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