Today’s Inter are the exact snapshot of Italian football: the values expressed in Serie A are relative rather than absolute.
There was a time when Serie A was able to express absolute values, because the best players in the world were playing here.
Today the situation is very different, with the exponential growth of the Premier League shifting resources and talent to England, alongside the giants of Spain, PSG in France, and Bayern Munich in Germany.
Football geopolitics today show a clear polarization, creating a gap between the aforementioned giants and everyone else, and Italian clubs now seem firmly stuck in the “others” group, on a par with Portuguese sides, to put it plainly. The “others” can still win at times, with Mourinho-style Porto-like exploits, but these are always virtuous exceptions.
The Nerazzurri suffered and lost on Tuesday in the Champions League against Arsenal and, three days later, delivered an impressive show of force in the league against Pisa.
As things stand, Inter—ever more firmly top of the Serie A table—are the litmus test of Italian football, which now expresses relative rather than absolute values.
Let’s widen the scope of the analysis from the last three days to the last two months, from late November to today, to better illustrate the point: in this period Inter have clearly taken off in the league, collecting nine wins and one draw (against Napoli) in their last ten matches, while they have literally pulled the handbrake in the Champions League, stringing together three consecutive defeats against Atletico Madrid, Liverpool, and Arsenal.
It is no coincidence that these three straight European losses, after a perfect start aided by a favorable schedule, came against two English sides and one Spanish giant, further confirming the point about the current European football geopolitics.
When the bar is raised against elite European opposition, the strongest Italian side comes to a halt, and this is no coincidence: it happens precisely because the values Inter express domestically are relative, not absolute.
Let’s set aside the most recent defeat against Arsenal, who are dominating the Premier League and have a perfect record in the Champions League. The other two losses came against Atletico Madrid, currently fourth in La Liga, and Liverpool, fourth in England and a long way off last season’s version.
There is no need to panic, but there is a reality to acknowledge. One could point out that Inter have reached two Champions League finals in the last three years. True, that is factual, but let’s analyze both the outcome (two defeats) and the path.
In 2022/23 the Nerazzurri were excellent at capitalizing on an unrepeatable chain of events, avoiding Europe’s heavyweights until the Final: Porto in the Round of 16, Benfica in the Quarterfinals, and Milan in the Semifinals. In the Final, let’s be honest, there was no one who truly believed Inter could beat Guardiola’s team. Inter were also good at standing up to City for as long as they could, but they still ended up losing to the juggernaut.
Last season the ending was far more expensive and therefore more bitter, because the Final against Luis Enrique’s PSG was a massacre: a 0–5 defeat that put Inter into the history books as the finalist with the heaviest loss margin in the history of the top continental club competition. Enough to almost regret having reached the Final at all.
The road to last season’s Final had certainly been much tougher than in 2022/23, to the point of leaving a far more optimistic outlook on the eve of the final compared to the one before facing City. Every Inter fan I spoke to in the days before the Final against the French said that, while they had never truly believed they could beat Guardiola’s City, against PSG the conviction of playing it on equal terms was genuine.
That belief stemmed both from the lesser reverential fear (mistakenly) inspired by PSG, the eternal underachievers of continental football, and from the wins against Bayern Munich and Barcelona in the Quarterfinals and Semifinals respectively.
Two of Europe’s giants knocked out one after the other… but how?
Here we open a parenthesis that takes nothing away from Inter’s achievement, because luck also needs to be earned by staying close to a stronger opponent and being ready to exploit the favorable moment.
In the Quarterfinals against Bayern, a decisive Frattesi goal in the 88th minute of the first leg in Bavaria proved crucial, while in the return leg of the Semifinal against Barcelona, with Inter one goal down and virtually eliminated deep into stoppage time, Acerbi’s 93rd-minute goal was nothing short of miraculous.
Favorable, fortunate episodes that do not diminish the credit due to Inzaghi’s side, who had put themselves in a position to go toe-to-toe with both teams. But they were still two one-off exploits, with a joker at the end. Until the Final…
Back to Serie A, the expression of relative rather than absolute values: Inter may have delivered the decisive breakaway by beating Pisa 6–2, because now the ball passes to the chasers, who in table order are Milan, Napoli, Roma, and Juventus.
With a double round of big matches scheduled for Sunday—Juventus–Napoli and Roma–Milan—the Nerazzurri already know for certain that at least one of their pursuers will drop points. All of them could even lose ground if both games end in draws.
The decisive sprint may already have begun.
L’articolo The litmus test of Italian football proviene da Soccer Made In Italy.
