Inter, the weight of expectation and what happens next

New York Times

2 days ago

Fifty-nine games later. Fifty-nine games and nothing to show for it. Fifty-nine games and at least another three to play at the Club World Cup without considering international duty. No holiday. No getting away from it. Football, football, football. Endless football.
The bodies of Inter's players must throb and ache. The miles on the clock ticking into the red. Father Time taps his watch on some of the veterans: Yann Sommer, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Francesco Acerbi and Matteo Darmian. Physiotherapy helps, injuries heal, the physical pain goes away. As for the mental anguish — the replays of regret playing in their heads… In time, they might fade and be taken off repeat. But the cost of chasing a dream is sometimes a recurring nightmare.
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Some Inter players collapsed to the ground after Saturday's 5-0 defeat to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final. Others sunk to their haunches. Federico Dimarco, a lifelong Inter fan who joined the club aged six, watched from the bench without really seeing anything. Simone Inzaghi had hooked him on 54 minutes after PSG's forwards provoked his discombobulation. It was an indignity. It was charitable, too. He should never have come out for the second half.
At 4-0 down, the PSG ultras, bathed in the pink fluorescence of their flares, serenaded every touch of their team with an 'Ole'. On the eve of the game, Inzaghi said he wanted his team to have the ball. They couldn't let PSG have it. But on the pitch, they couldn't take it off them. It was humbling and humiliating.
When Senny Mayulu made it five and added his name to Doue's on the list of youngest players ever to score in a Champions League final, PSG made this elderly Inter side look their age in a way no one else had managed this season.
A record-breaking winning margin was, on the one hand, of great credit to PSG. Their opponents had conceded only once in the league phase and spent just 16 minutes trailing in the Champions League all season, keeping clean sheets against Man City and Arsenal, and only falling behind late to Leverkusen and Barcelona — a team with similar energetic, youthful traits as PSG — in the second leg of the semi-final.
As good as PSG were at the Allianz, Inter's performance was also, by their standards, an aberration. A team that produced an epic last month against Barca, served up an unexpected epic fail.
Two years after defying expectations in Istanbul — pushing Manchester City hard in a final many had predicted would be the most one-sided in history — Inter, gallingly, in the end found themselves on the wrong end of the most one-sided final ever. They were unrecognisable from their usual selves, and not just because of the choice to play in yellow.
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It was a bad night. The day itself started with the news of Ernesto Pellegrini, Inter's former owner in the '80s, passing away. At the ground, the ultras, famous for their grandiose pre-match choreographies, did not prepare one — as many of the leaders have been arrested or placed under investigation after the Curva Nord's infiltration by the 'Ndrangheta, the fearsome Calabrian mafia.
PSG's start silenced the Inter fans anyway. It was as if they were stood on the team and the supporters' trachea. They took everyone's breath away, and when Inter's former player Achraf Hakimi gave PSG the lead, his refusal to celebrate was of little consolation.
Heroics from Gigio Donnarumma, the childhood Milan fan in the PSG goal, weren't needed. Inter's only shots on target came in the 75th and 84th minutes — precious little from a team that scored 114 goals this season, putting four past Bayern and seven past Barcelona.
The German word for what Inter's rivals felt was schadenfreude. In the PSG end, a flag from Napoli's ultras twirled in support of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Fabian Ruiz. It was also a reminder of what happened a week ago, when Inter relinquished their Serie A title to them on the final day of the season in Italy.
The disappointment lingered in the days leading up to the Champions League final. It added even more pressure on the players to deliver. They kept trying to put a brave face on, however, reporters kept bringing up the past.
Make no mistake, this Inter team has been greatly successful. They have won everything domestically under Inzaghi and secured a 20th Scudetto and a second star last year, clinching both in the derby against Milan. But it is also a team that has lost a lot: a Europa League final, two Champions League finals in three years, two Scudetti in four seasons, both of which went down to the final game, and a Super Cup in January from a 2-0 lead.
Unless you support one of Inter's nemeses, it's hard not to feel a twinge of compassion and empathy for the human beings in Inter shirts who have regularly gone the distance, only to fall just short.
During the trophy lift in Munich, Inter's players looked through hot tears, as someone other than them danced up and down, and enjoyed the greatest moment of their careers. Not this. Not again. Will we ever be back here again?
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You have to go back to the 1960s to find the last time Inter made as many Champions League finals in one decade. Hakan Calhanoglu thought of this final as a second chance after losing one in Istanbul. Inter were grateful for it. They had more than earned it.
But when is a second chance also a last chance for a team with so many players in their late twenties and thirties? Only the Inter players know how much that weighed on their minds going into this game. Perhaps it contributed to their leggy and inhibited appearance on the night. Perhaps it overwhelmed them and cancelled out whatever benefit the experience of two years ago might have had in preparing for another final.
Perhaps Inter felt they had everything to lose, that time wasn't on their side — whereas PSG could attack the game knowing this team still has its best years ahead of it.
Fifty-nine games and zeru tituli. This is a phrase that has been thrown back at Inter in the last 48 hours. It was coined by Jose Mourinho in his unprecedented treble-winning season with Inter in 2010, when he taunted their rivals about finishing without a trophy.
After the game, Inzaghi remained proud of his players, as well he should be. While much of the commentary has been about how bad Inter were on the night, they are not a bad team. Bad teams do not repeatedly reach finals — especially if they run the gauntlet Inter ran to get to Munich.
As for their record in big games? You have to play several of them in order to reach the biggest of them all. Ask yourself: were the Bayern and Barca ones not big enough?
The question is: now what?
Inter's owners, Oaktree, wanted Beppe Marotta to rejuvenate the squad this summer regardless of the outcome against PSG, and that process is already underway. Marseille's Luis Henrique (a fateful name) is set to complete a move to Inter this week.
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The greater uncertainty regards Inzaghi, who will meet the executive team and decide whether or not he wishes to continue. Has he taken this team as far as it can go? Does he want to go out on a 5-0 defeat in a final? What will the rebuild look like?
Inzaghi admitted he didn't know whether he would be in charge for the Club World Cup — and while no one wishes to rush him into a decision, time is of the essence.
Milan have hired Max Allegri, who Marotta knows and respects from their time together at Juventus. Cesc Fabregas and Roberto De Zerbi are still ensconced at Como and Marseille.
Fifty-nine games and the work is only just beginning. Football relentlessly moves on. But how will Inter?