This
season there have been more than a few similarities between the Premier League's Chelsea
and Serie A's Inter Milan. Both clubs started the season aiming to challenge for their respective championships, but now sit in lower positions than they would want. Currently both are 6th
in their leagues, with fading hopes of qualifying for the Champions
League through league position, although Chelsea still do have the
chance to qualify directly by winning it on May 19.
Both
clubs have faced accusations of having aging squads, with their
senators being accused of being past it. Players such as Didier
Drogba and Frank Lampard for Chelsea, and Diego Milito and Esteban
Cambiasso for Inter, who in the past have been key to the
success of their teams, have all come under fire.
Another similarity the teams share is that they both sacked established
managers in March, and promoted younger individuals from within their
existing set-up; Roberto Di Matteo, former Assistant Manager to Andre
Villas-Boas at Chelsea, and Andrea Stramaccioni, who was the Inter primavera youth team coach, replaced Claudio Ranieri.
Both
Di Matteo and Stramaccioni were initially brought in as caretakers, to steady
teams that were desperately underperforming. In Villas-Boas' last few
weeks Chelsea had been on a run of just three wins in twelve matches,
and senior players were unhappy with his team selections. At Inter,
after seven straight league wins in December 2011 and January 2012 seemed to herald a new dawn,
the team slumped to a run of one win in ten league matches and
Ranieri was accused of not being able to fit Wesley Sneijder into his
formation.
Since
taking over, both Di Matteo and Stramaccioni have managed to turn
their teams fortunes around, with Chelsea winning the FA cup and
reaching the Champions League final, and Inter going from being 10
points behind the final Champions League qualifying position in Serie
A, to within three points now. On Sunday Stramaccioni also led Inter
to a 4-2 derby victory over AC Milan.
Following
the derby win Inter's billionaire owner Massimo Moratti confirmed
that Stramaccioni will be kept on the bench for next season.
Personally, I hope he is given time and patience to build a team, as it would good
to see a young Italian coach given the opportunity to take Inter back
to the top.
Despite
the FA cup win and scheduled Champions League final appearance, Di
Matteo has not yet been given the same backing by Chelsea's own
billionaire owner, Roman Abramovich. Chelsea's owner has never been
known to make sentimental decisions on the club and despite a lot of
calls from the media for Di Matteo to get the job permanently,
Abramovich may still decide to go for a glamour name. It has been
rumoured that he hopes to try and persuade Pep Guardiola to forget about taking a
year out of the game, and move to Stamford Bridge instead.
As we approach the end of the season, both these parallel clubs will now look
forward, in the hope that young managers can take them into the
future.
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