Sometimes its hard being an Inter fan. I still remember some of the wilderness years between 1990 and 2004, when we failed to win much of note, and the heartbreak of the loss to Lazio on the final day of the 2002 season when a win would have won us the league and we had been 2-1 up. Then came Calciopoli, and we won five straight Serie A titles, culminating in the league, Coppa Italia and Champions League treble in 2010. The Champions League win came on my birthday, and is something I never thought I'd see.
Since those heady days though, Inter have been on a big downward curve. Going back to the ways of not winning anything, and not qualifying for the Champions League since 2011. We've been struggling to get back amongst the big time for four years now, and this season seems like we'll miss out again.
On Sunday Inter lost to 1-0 to Torino, leaving us 10 points back from third place, and probably ending our chances of qualifying for the Champions League through the league for another season. I watched the Torino game with a sense of resignation; Inter controlled the match, but as I've seen a thousand times, couldn't capitalise and then conceded in the 94th minute.
Although it looks like third place, which was our objective at the start of the season, is already out of reach this early in the year, I'm not too disappointed. Roberto Mancini's return has me feeling optimistic for next season, even though I wanted Walter Mazzari to succeed, and I'm sorry he had to be fired. We've made some interesting signings this January in Lukas Podolski and Xherdan Shaqiri and I'm eager to see how they perform given some more time, and see how the whole team does under Mancini's tactics. The loss to Torino was our first in five games and there's been a new sense of positivity around the club and from the players.
So, I'm going to look at this season as a rebuilding season. The average age of the team has been lowered and I'm hoping for good things from a team that can learn and grow. We went so long without winning anything until 2004 and winning the Champions League in 2010 was such an unexpected joy that I can wait a little longer to get back to the heights.
Tomorrow we play Sassuolo away, a match that I would hope Inter can win, but with Inter, who knows? Whatever happens though, I just want to see a good performance, and signs that things might improve next season. Forza Inter!
