Fans indifferent to the San Siro derby at home and away
IT SHOULD be the most eagerly-anticipated fixture of the weekend, but the Milan derby causes barely a murmur these days, even in the Lombardy capital. Yet the game between the teams placed fifth and tenth in Serie A is more significant than it first appears, marking the end of an era for both clubs or the beginning of one, depending on your outlook.
On the face of it, Milan are the team most in need of three points. Scudetto winners as recently as 2011, the Rossoneri have won just two of their last 10 league games and only qualification for the knockout stage of the Champions League has saved manager Max Allegri.
Lose to Inter, though, and he might not make it past the weekend, let alone as far as February’s last16 Champions League clash with Atletico Madrid. However, so precarious is Milan’s financial position that it’s doubtful they could afford to sack Allegri or hire a replacement of sufficient quality.
It was all looking so promising, too, with the arrival of boyhood fan Mario Balotelli in January providing some consolation for the big-money sales of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Thiago Silva to Paris Saint-Germain six months earlier.
The former Manchester City striker scored 12 goals in 13 games to fire Milan into third place, but despite a fair return of nine in 18 this season, an overreliance on the 23-year-old has led to unfair criticism.
Super Mario’s recent return to form is welcome news ahead of today’s game especially with captain and midfield driving force Riccardo Montolivo missing through suspension.
Another positive is the recent decision of chief executive Adriano Galliani to stay at the club, having originally said he would quit having effectively been forced to job-share with owner Silvio Berlosconi’s daughter, Barbara.
Despite the imminent arrival of Japan playmaker Keisuke Honda, Galliani, the man responsible for bringing some of the world’s best players to Milan, has spoken of a change of direction, with a refocus on youth development in the hope that Financial Fair Play will enable them to compete again with Europe’s biggest clubs.
It’s a similar story at Inter, where the 70 per cent purchase of the club by Erick Thohir in October is unlikely to usher in a new period of big spending. The Indonesian billionaire is only the second foreign owner in Serie A, with the US takeover of Roma not quite or, at least, not yet opening the floodgates to overseas investment in the way some had hoped.
‘If they bring money, let them come,’ was one Roma fan’s blunt welcome. But as the capital club have discovered, Roman Abramovich-types are hardly queuing up to get a slice of calcio.
Instead, it’s about developing new strategies and extending their global reach the way Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid and the big Premier League clubs have.
‘In financial terms, we’ve played entirely at home, and lost,’ was how outgoing Inter owner Massimo Moratti put it. As for matters on the pitch, Thohir himself has admitted there will be ‘no Gareth Bale type signings’ and instead wants to make Inter’s academy ‘the best in the world’.
This would represent a change of tack for the Nerazzurri, who are still over-reliant on Argentine 30somethings such as Walter Samuel, Esteban Cambiasso, Rodrigo Palacio, not to mention 40-yearold full-back Javier Zanetti.
They have certainly improved on last season, when they finished 9th, but as Rafael Benitez discovered when he inherited Jose Mourinho’s treble winners in 2010, short-term success is often achieved at the expense of long-term stability.
It’s something current manager Walter Mazzarri will soon discover if younger stars just as Philippe Coutinho (Liverpool) and Chelsea target Fredy Guarin continue to be cherry-picked.
They also go into today’s game with some problems of their own, having failed to win their last four matches, thanks largely to an increasingly leaky defence.
Any thoughts that the atmosphere of a ‘home’ derby is just what they need to kickstart their season have been dampened by the fact that Inter’s Curva Nord will be closed after anti-Neapolitan chanting by travelling ultras in the 4-2 defeat at Napoli last week. It means their fans could even be outnumbered by Milan’s ‘away’ support.
‘A derby without the Curvas loses its appeal,’ said Zanetti, while even Milan’s ultras have threatened to boycott the game in support of their Inter brethren. With so little enthusiasm for the Derby della Madonnina in Milan, what chance have the rest of us got?