Inter prepare to board managerial merry-go-round, thanks to the Deserting One
Monday 31 May 2010 11:57
Not only did he skip the celebrations back in Milan, he failed to even board the team coach outside the Bernabeu stadium - preferring to jump into his new sugar daddy’s car to whizz off into the Spanish sunset.
The spurned Massimo Moratti certainly felt he had been letdown and much of the shine had been taken off the club’s defining moment, with the future of his soon-to-be former coach grabbing the headlines.
Like any divorce involving the obscenely rich, it usually comes down to splitting the filthy lucre – and in this case it was a €16 million settlement at the centre of the final split.
However, even if Inter did wring €8 million out of the Deserting One, the former object of Nerazzurri affection still walked away without a second glance.
Moratti knows that Florentino Perez will be back sniffing around for Douglas Maicon, so expect a few extra million euros on the price tag and of course Real can forget about the €3 million that it is still owed on Wesley Sneijder
And now Inter have to join the summer merry-go-round to install a new coach.
While the majority of them are quite happy where they are, it is a fact of life for an Italian coach that the summer will be spent house-hunting and getting to know a new club.
Over half of the Serie A misters will be on the move over the next month or so as presidents up and down the country look for instant success.
While Inter have been linked with Fabio Capello (the firm fan favourite), Carlos Dunga, Luciano Spalletti and Luiz Felipe Scolari, Serie A rivals Juventus have already signed up Luigi Del Neri – a man who seems permanently stuck in fast-forward mode, so quickly does he speak.
Taking Sampdoria to fourth place was an achievement in itself but doing the same with the ailing Old Lady will just not do, so Del Boy has his work cut out - especially as the team needs a complete overall. Then there’s the small matter of keeping Juve’s other Del Boy happy too...
Samp have gone for another middle-of-the-road manager in Domenico Di Carlo, while AC Milan are edging towards Massimiliano Allegri only because Silvio Berlusconi cannot spare the time from his duties of running the country into the ground.
AS Roma will retain Claudio Ranieri, but he cannot be overjoyed that the famed fan of life’s simpler pleasures, Adriano (yes, that one), will be hitting the spa town that is known as Rome.
Fiorentina have lost Cesare Prandelli to the greater cause that is the Italy national team and the candidate list for his replacement is as long as the weekend traffic jam coming off the motorway outside Florence.
However Sinisa Mihajlovic will probably already have a Viola scarf around his neck by the time you read this, having resigned from Catania in the mistaken belief that Moratti would take him back.
Francesco Guidolin and Pasquale Marino only need to swap notes after swapping clubs with the former heading to Udinese as the latter gets ready to speed down the motorway to Parma.
Plenty more kilometres will be eaten up as too many coaches chase too few jobs but all eyes will be on that very special job – the real tasty one at Inter.
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About Richard Whittle
Despite the name,
Richard Whittle is so at home in Italy that some call him Riccardo Rossi. He has lived and worked in Italy for the last 15 years as a football journalist and works as Italian soccer commentator for the English-speaking world covering Serie A, Champions League, Europa League and Italian Cup matches as well as Italy internationals. With Paul Visca, Richard concocts the regular
Calcio & Coffee podcast.