OK, Now What?

By: Johonna | August 9th, 2009

Eto\'o clearly does not like to lose.So we didn’t win. Meh. I see it as a half empty / half full kind of deal: the squad played well as a team with good movement and pace (half full) but they got one more goal than we did (half empty). I am not going to get into which was the better team or who played better football, because, at the end, the only thing that matters is they won and we didn’t. Am I disappointed? Yes, a bit. But I also am happy for Lazio and what they have achieved. It has been a rough few years for them and maybe they wanted (and needed) this trophy more than we did. Besides, have you seen Lazio’s new jerseys? They deserve this win if only to make up for that horror they will have to wear every week. Yikes.

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INTERNATIONAL CALL-UPS

We are moving into an international break and Inter have twelve players going out to play for their countries:

Davide Santon to Basel for Switzerland v Italy

Mario Balotelli to St. Petersburg for Russia v Italy (U21)

Ivan Cordoba to New York for Columbia v Venezuela

Cristian Chivu to Budapest for Hungary v Romania

Sulley Muntari to London for Ghana v Zambia

Nicolas Burdisso, Diego Milito and Javier Zanetti to Moscow for Russia v Argentina (poor Samuel, he never gets calle up)

Samuel Eto’o to Klagenfurt for Austria v Cameroon;

Julio Cesar, Maicon, and Lucio to Tallinn for Estonia v Brazil.

Most of them left directly from China to join their teams. In addition, Mourinho has given a few days off to Patrick Vieira, Francesco Toldo, David Suazo, Dejan Stankovic and Rene Krhin.

YET MORE FRIENDLIES

Yep, just when you thought we were finally finished with summer friendlies, two more pop up.

First, there is the Trofeo Tim on August 14 in Pescara. For those of you who dont know, the Trofeo Tim is a wacky three-way game between Milan, Juve, and Inter comprised of three 45-minute periods that Juve have never won (this could be their year, though). Considering the grueling travel schedule most of our starters have, this could be one that gets away from us.

Then, Inter play the Bahrain National team on August 16 in Kapfenberg, Austria. After that, all we have to do is buckle down and prepare to beat Bari on opening day.

Oh, and find a &*$&%#* TREQUARTISTA! Van der Vaart seems to be the favorite now.

FORZA INTER



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  • Vinod |  August 11th, 2009 at 2:35 pm

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    hmmm, that last word didn’t turn out right – it was supposed to be (insert-whatever-you-like)ham.

    Johonna, is HTML enabled for these comments or something? Cos in the previous post, I used angular brackets instead, and my words disappeared…

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  • Johonna |  August 11th, 2009 at 2:48 pm

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    Vinod, yes, you can use rudimentary html in these comments (bold, italics, etc). If you use brackets and wordpress doesn’t understand the html, the program just deletes the whole thing.

    I know, it sort of limits HTML-based jokes. You should be able to use parenthesis (), regular brackets [], and the funky curly ones {}, though.

    Sorry.

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  • brian |  August 11th, 2009 at 4:37 pm

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    i have an imposter, lol. but i am with brian. i wouldn’t mind a gourcuff signing just to see how pissed milan fans would be. plus he is young and he is what we are looking for. he is easily worth 25 million.

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  • ajay |  August 11th, 2009 at 6:06 pm

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    seem like we are gonna get an extra 9mil if mancini(former manager) agrees to coach zenit. we are currently paying him a salary, but that could now go to buying a new trequartista.

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  • Vinod |  August 11th, 2009 at 8:17 pm

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    Johonna, I have no idea what you apologized for, but thanks for the info. Now I can have some fun with my posts. :) Would there be a list of allowed tags somewhere, or is it simply whatever is default in Wordpress blogs?

    And good God, I completely forgot Mancio. Thanks for bringing that up Ajay. I wonder when he’ll man up and stop living off his paid vacation. Oh, and I think his will be closer to €6-7m. But of course, it all counts. And if Vieira / Mancini leaves, that’s an additional 3m each, and if Rivas / Obinna leaves, that’s another 1.5-2m each. So if we think of the best case scenario, where Moratti is willing to spend all the Ibra cash, and all these guys leave along with Mancio, that’s about €65m we have available for our trequartista. Ribery, anyone? :)

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  • Johonna |  August 11th, 2009 at 8:56 pm

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    I was apologizing for being the bearer of bad news (no html-themed smarty-pants type jokes).

    As for tags, no list that I have found, but blockquote, bold, italic, and hot linking works – font color and lines do not (although they do in wordpress blogs). Plus, you can use ascii characters: ♥ © and the like.

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  • Johonna |  August 11th, 2009 at 9:02 pm

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    Impostor Brian: supposedly, Bordeaux is only asking 15 million (3 more than they paid – or is it 2?). That is why he is so attractive. Well, that and the aforementioned eyelashes.

    Sneijder is 25 million, but there is some thought that it may come down a teensy tiny bit (like to 20 maybe).

    As for Van der Vaart, word is Inter offered Real Madrid 5 million now and a buyout of 7 million after a year. Madrid would rather have all the money at once, but may be willing to change their minds for first crack at Maicon should he want to leave. Van der Vaart has already said he would like to leave Madrid so that may give Inter the bargaining power.

    Whatever happens, it better happen this week or we may be in trouble.

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  • ScudettoStarved |  August 11th, 2009 at 9:44 pm

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    After seeing the SuperCoppa, I’d be happy with any of the above three.

    If Inter had a theoretical 65 million to spend and are trying to compete on 3 fronts is it crazy to buy two playmakers since there are a few available for a good price?

    If Inter bought two world-class playmakers, which current player(s) do you think would suffer the most?

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  • Vinod |  August 11th, 2009 at 10:18 pm

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    Thanks again, Johonna! Also, 20m for Sneijder seems pretty reasonable, but like you pointed out with the Van der Vaart deal, its pretty straightforward that they would want to bring Maicon into the deal somehow. But if we do make this ‘pact with the devil’ to give them the first refusal on Maicon, won’t that destabilize him? Considering that he’s been bleating about a move and ‘respect’ all summer long, it might just hasten things. And Maicon’s kind of a simpleton (with all due respect!), he’s not as professional as Ibra, who can flirt with rival clubs, bully teammates and still score crackers every week.

    SS: We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, aren’t we? ;) But my guesses would be that Deki and Muntari would take the hit, especially if one of those playmakers can play deeper, like Sneijder.

    If and when we do get at least ONE playmaker, I’d actually prefer to see Deki play in place of Muntari. He may not be as quick or as strong, but he’s certainly no slacker, and can chip in with his long-range missiles and good link-up play. Deki seems to have an excellent understanding with Cambiasso especially. I guess its only expected after 5 years of starting together. Damn, Figo-Veron-Cambiasso-Stankovic was a killer midfield, wasn’t it? I wonder how we didn’t get further in the CL with that!

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  • kirby |  August 11th, 2009 at 10:48 pm

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    cuz veron never shower up to the big matches. plus, the tactics used by our coach then were pure garbage

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  • Johonna |  August 11th, 2009 at 11:18 pm

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    Vinod, with the Africa Cup of Nations coming up, you very well may get to see that.

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  • Vinod |  August 11th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

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    Yeah, but I kinda meant every week, even with Muntari around.

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  • ScudettoStarved |  August 12th, 2009 at 1:17 am

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    Vinod, what can I say? I’ve grown up an Inter fan. I expect there to be 5+ world-class players at every position. And that’s the one of the best parts of being here, I could be bored and daydreaming about Inter 09/10, throw out a hypothetical and y’all will be right there with me.

    Of course you could only justify two AM’s if most of the dead weight is sold. Ricky/Mancini would have a lot more pressure on them to perform, it’d strangle most of the Primavera kids as well. But a versatile guy like VDV could come in handy during the ACoN. (Muntari didn’t go to the ACoN last season did he? If Sulley and Eto’o are gone for a month this year it will put a strain on Inter’s depth chart for a semi-crucial stage in the season.)

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  • MAD |  August 12th, 2009 at 3:05 am

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    “Muntari didn’t go to the ACoN last season did he?”

    I think that the ACN is only held every two or three years or something like that…

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  • MAD |  August 12th, 2009 at 3:09 am

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    Many happy returns to Orlandoni and Balotelli both have a birthday today.

    It looks like Inter are trying to loan Sneijder before settling for VDV

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  • Kabir |  August 12th, 2009 at 4:10 am

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    I went to see Real vs DC United last weekend. Sneijeder was entirely unimpressive. VDV didn’t even play (or I didn’t notice him). Higuain and Robben were the stand out performers, but neither of them are leaving.

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  • Francesco |  August 12th, 2009 at 4:31 am

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    Please no VDV. And no Ribery either. Not the type of player we’re after.
    OTOH it seems Roma are interested in Burdisso. I’d much rather see Rivas go, but I won’t slit my wrists if that deal actually happens.

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  • ScudettoStarved |  August 12th, 2009 at 8:44 am

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    You’re right MAD. Every two years.

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  • mickey |  August 12th, 2009 at 9:06 am

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    hey wassup guys im back after two weeks. WOOO i missed so much football since then. ARGH we didnt sign hleb that sob decided to choose stuttgart over us what an ass. Sneijder is a must for us now if not we need to get vdv who would be better then nothing. According to tuttomecatoweb we could easily get him cuz a report from holland says that he could leave real madrid for zero euros and we could still try to get sneijder after that. One thing is for sure we need to get these players before the champions league start. Anyways although i am kinda upset with the supercoppa loss i think that there is a lot we can take from it. I thought that we played extremely well and created so many chances that we should have been up 3-0 before lazio scored their first goal. On a whole we played really well considering how we gave up only one really good chance which happened to be the second goal. That was the only negative for me cuz we could have defended better on that goal. And as for the first goal well there was nothing we could do about that one, before matuzalem even touched the ball it had taken a billion deflections on its way towards him and he might have even hit it with his hand so there. Lazio just got lucky cuz we missed a few sitters but im not mad at our team cuz they easily outplayed lazio. I dont get why everyone has to be so mean to mourinho though he was only saying the truth when it came to the match. Theres some intellectual prostitution for ya

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  • Vinod |  August 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am

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    Mickey, I highly doubt VdV will be allowed to leave for free.

    Kabir, how long did Sneijder play in that game?

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  • ajay |  August 12th, 2009 at 11:58 am

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    vdv just scored for holland against england to make it 2-0

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  • Johonna |  August 12th, 2009 at 12:04 pm

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    Vinod, the argument is that Real is in breach of contract because they have not issued VdV a number. No number = not on the team so they have no right to ask anything for his transfer.

    Dubious but there you go.

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  • Vinod |  August 12th, 2009 at 1:22 pm

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    Interesting! I didn’t know Van der Vaart was not assigned a number. But there’s lots of possible legal fuzz in the argument, and I don’t think it’ll get settled so easily.

    I’d love for us to pick him up on a free, we have a history of Real players who’ve come here for nothing and become heroes. Also, he was supposedly very impressive in the one half he played today, and had the captain’s armband on too.

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  • jojo_milan |  August 12th, 2009 at 1:54 pm

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    As reported on goal.com from an interview he granted after the England-Netherlands match, apparently Sneijder doesn’t want to come to Inter. Well for a team with supposedly strong desire to win the CL, we are sure doing a lousy effort to fill an important component of the team. Can’t we just get someone already ? If a trequartista doesn’t come on time, he might as well not come at all. This is supposed to be the brain of the team and the fellow would have missed preseason and every single friendly game before the start of the season. When is he supposed to have the time to get a feel for the team’s rhythm in order to learn how to dictate it ?

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  • Didier |  August 13th, 2009 at 12:52 am

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    First time poster, long time reader. VdV is the best option on the market at the moment. We should thank our lucky stars if we get him considering the only reason Nedved is not on our list is because he said no and Deco is not here because Chelsea want some Euros for him when we thought he was free.

    Sneijder just said he doesn’t want to leave Madrid so there’s only one option left.

    Posted from Australia Australia

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