Chivu and Allegri suffered two lessons from Bruges and Villarreal, compromising their objectives in Europe. Italian football in crisis, how does it get back on its feet? Today it’s the turn of Rome and Como.
An Italian cry, two defeats that hurt terribly and that reduce not only Inter and Napoli but all of Italian football. Tuesday was a shock for our team in the Champions League also because this time the defeat did not come against Real Madrid and Arsenal, as on the night of the debut, but by collapsing in front of Bruges and Villarreal. Good teams, for goodness sake, but nothing that can justify the slaps received in two matches which will heavily influence the rest of the European season.
This is not the case and the beautiful story of Nicolò Tresoldi, born in 2004, author of a hat-trick at San Siro and chased by the blue shirt after our clubs lost him as a child, is not enough to console us. We need to quickly bathe in humility and ask ourselves what isn’t working when our big teams stick their noses out of Serie A. There is no time to waste and next week Shakhtar Donetsk (Inter) and Bodo Glimt (Napoli) will already be the penultimate beaches for Chivu and Allegri. Hoping that Roma will be able to keep up with Real Madrid in Mourinho’s favorite match that returns to the Olimpico and that Como will confirm itself as the hook to hold on to.
Inter, this is not a serious Champions League
Inter’s defeat against Bruges is the result of a hysterical and disjointed match, in which errors and episodes played a role but which had as its most worrying element the team’s exit from the pitch once it had suffered a second disadvantage. Chivu has a huge problem in goal and solving it cannot be postponed: Martinez can’t handle the pressure and it’s time for Provedel to try and take the responsibility.
The goalkeeper, however, is not the only thing that isn’t working in a defensive phase that has conceded 14 goals in the first 8 games of the season and which concedes an impressive amount of shots and opportunities to the opposing attackers. The statistics of the match against Bruges are amateur football: 48 conclusions (30-18) of which 20 were on target (12-8). Adding up the 90 minutes at the Bernabeu we arrive at a total of 85 (51-34) of which 35 were on target (20-15): there is no balance and in Europe it is a luxury that no one can afford.
Allegri and Napoli too bad to be true
If Inter cries, Napoli cannot laugh. At Vila-Real he remained on the pitch for half an hour in which he scored and created some chances. Then nothing more and the subsequent collapse cannot be explained only by Politano’s suicide which paved the way for the Spaniards to draw. Four defeats in 8 games means that the Neapolitans have lost half of the times they have taken to the field, condemning themselves to go back upstream both in the league and in Europe where the memory of last season’s failure is fresh.
Nobody can remove themselves from the analysis of the causes of the crisis, not even Allegri who placed the blame on the players. It may be that they fell apart in the moment of difficulty, but Max’s career in the Champions League is taking a disturbing turn: only one victory (against Maccabi Haifa on the Juventus bench) in the last 10 outings with 8 defeats and a draw. Combining this score with Conte’s tears a year ago, a simple question emerges: is it possible that Napoli have forgotten how to play in Europe?
