Preview: Inter – Parma

By: MAD | September 12th, 2009

Cuchu opens the scoring!

Overview

The last time Parma came to the San Siro to play Inter was way back in January of 2008. That game was a real nail-biter, with Parma leading us until the last few minutes of the game. The winning goal only came in injury time (from you know who). It shows that now, just as then, Parma are not an easy team. They have a team populated with youth players on loan, hungry to show they are ready to “come home.” Parma will be scrappy and attacking, and fast. They will bring the game to us and I hope we are ready for them because these three points are necessary.

Here are the highlights from that January game. Hopefully it wont be quite so foggy this Sunday:

We had as many as 15 players go away for the international break. The squad should return pretty confident – minus Javier who had to suffer defeat this past week – if a little worn out. Mario, Lucio, Cesar, Maicon, Muntari and Eto’o in particular had a pretty good break.

Mourinho earlier today talked about our injury situation. Cambiasso starts working with the squad on Monday, Arnautovic is close to top condition and there is nothing seriously wrong with Materazzi.

Very good.

Mourinho had nothing but good things to say about Parma. He talked about their experience from the coach to the players and how they will play their game. This match, says Mourinho, is the most important one and the game against Barcelona coming up will not influence his choices. In fact, he says that he’s not of a mind to rest anyone.

20 players will be called up:
Goalkeepers: 1 Francesco Toldo, 12 Julio Cesar, 21 Paolo Orlandoni.
Defenders: 2 Ivan Ramiro Cordoba, 4 Javier Zanetti, 6 Lucio, 13 Maicon, 25 Walter Samuel, 26 Cristian Chivu, 39 Davide Santon.
Midfielders: 7 Ricardo Quaresma, 8 Thiago Motta, 10 Wesley Sneijder, 11 Sulley Muntari, 14 Patrick Vieira, 15 René Krhin.
Strikers: 9 Samuel Eto’o, 18 David Suazo, 22 Diego Milito, 45 Mario Balotelli.

La Gazzetta dello Sport sees the formation:

4-3-1-2

12 Julio Cesar
13 Maicon 6 Lucio 25 Samuel 4 J. Zanetti
14 Vieira 5 Stankovic 8 Thiago Motta
11 Muntari
45 Balotelli 9 Eto’o

I think it’ll be:

12 Julio Cesar
13 Maicon 6 Lucio 25 Samuel 4 Santon
4 J. Zanetti 5 Stankovic 8 Thiago Motta
10 Schmujcko
45 Balotelli 9 Eto’o

Mourinho already said that he wasn’t going to rest anyone. Deki appears to have an 11th hour flu and who really knows how injured Schmujcko was last weekend. He did play midweek, if I remember correctly – he scored, didn’t he? But this would be the guy who gets rested if anyone does.

Them

I had thought that the Parma Offsides was up and running but a second look shows that it stopped posting in July. Fair enough then…

Although Parma is a team with prestigious past (2 UEFA Cups, 1 Supper Cup, 3 Coppa Italias), it has also been checkered and Parma has spent many years yo-yo-ing between the divisions. As such, Inter and Parma have only met 18 times at the San Siro. Of those, Inter have won 11, drawn 6 and only lost 1. So far, Parma have had a pretty good start, drawing Udinese on opening day, then beating Catania on matchday 2. In both cases, Parma opened the scoring, and with young talents like Daniele Galloppa and Alberto Paloschi on their roster, they will be dangerous.

According to La Gazzetta dello Sport this is the Parma probable formation:

4-4-2

83 Mirante
5 Zaccardo 2 Panucci 24 Paci 6 Lucarelli
15 Dellafiore 17 Morrone4 Mariga 14 Galloppa
20 Biabiany 43 Paloschi

Some names here might seem familiar. We had a quick meet-n-greet with Biabiany earlier this week and found that he is a youth product of ours. Dellafiore was an Inter youth player as well, before we sent him out to Palermo with cash for Fabio Grosso in 2006. We sold Grosso to Lyon the very next year and Palermo has sent Dellafiore out on loan every year they had him except the first season. It’s hard to find a winner in that deal. Panucci was a player here for a year and was relatively anonymous.

As a newly promoted team, Parma has nothing to play for other than 17th place. I expect that they will try to beat us on the run, like Bari tried to do.

Where to watch:

FSC 9:00am EST (6:00am PST)
Myp2p.eu
ATDHE.net click live sports. Scroll down to find the game.

This will be a good test of the team and just the thing we need to get us ready for Barcelona on Wednesday. Hopefully, the boys will be able to concentrate on the game at hand and not the one coming up.

In case some of you don’t remember, Johonna is out of town this week. This is the first of her mini-posts. Let’s make sure that we keep her and her family in our thoughts or prayers.

FORZA INTER