Gianluigi Buffon, the captain of Italy’s serial champions, Juventus, may have been indulging a spot of mind games when, last weekend, he described Inter Milan as “looking better than Real Madrid or Barcelona at the moment.”
If it was a psychological dart, it may even have worked as Buffon intended, putting a jinx on Serie A’s form team.
Inter were enjoying their best sequence of results for five years when they welcomed Lazio in the quarter-final of the Coppa Italia a couple of days after Buffon had spoken.
A win would have taken them to 10 victories in a row. Buffon was not wrong to point out their record since early December bettered the big two sides in Spain, and any superclub he might have cared to mention. Then Lazio dented the momentum, 2-1 winners at San Siro.
Then again, the Coppa Italia is not Inter’s priority competition this season. The league is. Not that the fallen heavyweights nurse too many dreams of leapfrogging Juventus, to where they go for Sunday’s so-called Derby D’Italia, at the summit of the table.
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Finishing in the top three, and thus participating in the next Uefa Champions League, is the target and the 21 points they have garnered from their last seven Serie A fixtures have certainly given Inter a confidence that is achievable. They trail third-placed Napoli by just three points with 16 dates left on the calendar.
That is as good as Inter’s relatively new executives, from the Chinese Suning Sports group — the club’s majority shareholders since last June — could have anticipated after their brutal introduction to the sort of turmoil that periodically afflicts modern Inter when they took control in the boardroom.
When Roberto Mancini, in his second spell as manager, quit in August, the club were left hurriedly looking for their eighth new manager in six years. By November 1, they were lining up their ninth.
The luckless man in between Mancini and Stefano Pioli, the current manager, was Dutchman Frank De Boer, who oversaw a wretched Europa League campaign and a mere 11 matches in Serie A, five of which ended in defeat, and only one of which — a win against Juventus — will remain in De Boer’s personal scrapbook of happy recollections.
Pioli, formerly of Lazio and as weathered in the ways of Italian football as De Boer was unaccustomed to them, took over with Inter 12th in the table.
It would be an exaggeration to say Pioli has turned the stumbling Inter of the autumn into a vibrant, swaggering force.
What he has done is make them less brittle, and surer of their bearings.
The squad is well stocked with pedigree but at times under De Boer, Inter looked like a one-man team, so reliant were they on striker Mauro Icardi to dig them out trouble with his goals. And if Icardi was not enough, then Samir Handanovic, the goalkeeper, needed to play the saviour.
In the recent run of strong league form, Inter have found the likes of Ivan Perisic and Andrea Candreva providing penetration, along with Icardi, while the five clean sheets in their last seven Serie A outings have reassured Handanovic he is better protected by his defence.
“We have grown,” Pioli said, “but at the moment there is still nothing substantial to show for that. We need to keep our calm and determination all the way to the end of May.”
If that sounds a little downbeat, that is because Pioli’s style tends to the unamplified. He is also observing how competitive the top of the Italian league has become.
Buffon is entitled to point out that Inter’s form is superior to Madrid’s or Barcelona’s but it is not so far ahead of Italy’s top three clubs that the Pioli juggernaut can be said to be scattering every obstacle aside.
Inter’s last 10 league games have yielded 25 points, but over the same period, Roma, in second spot, and Napoli have only dropped six points each of the 30 available.
What Inter have done is barge past and well clear of their local rivals, AC Milan, in the joust for a top-three finish.
There is satisfaction in that, though, for all Buffon’s studied compliments, the city of Milan is still the site of a pair of formerly great clubs best described as works in progress.
PLAYER OF THE WEEK — EMMANUEL ADEBAYOR
After six months without a club, the tall, lean and sometimes awkward Adebayor has made another of his characteristically grand entrances in a January transfer window. And the Togolese striker, 32, is now eyeing a league title with Istanbul’s Basaksehir.
Courter of controversy
Adebayor arrives at the eighth European club of his career with a certain amount of baggage. He has not always been the ideal employee. His departures from two of his Premier League clubs, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur were preceded by fallouts with management and periods marginalised from the first-team squad.
Totem for Togo
For his national team, for whom he captained at the Africa Cup of Nations last month, he is an important figure, however. The small west African country has never produced a footballer so successful, and Adebayor helped inspire Togo to their first and only appearance at a World Cup, in 2006. He has 75 caps and 30 goals.
Leadership
Adebayor emerged as a leader for his countrymen following the tragedy in Cabinda, Angola at the 2010 Nations Cup, when the Togo team bus was attacked by armed gunman. Three people died, and Adebayor behaved with dignity through the crisis. The event, he says, left him appreciative of his blessings.
In shape
Adebayor’s last club fixture was for Crystal Palace, last May. His six-month contract there was not renewed and he spent the second half of 2016 keeping fit with pickup matches near his home in Lome, Togo. Reports from the Nations Cup in Gabon, where Togo were eliminated in the group phase, reached Turkey that he looked sharp and influential. Basaksehir have given him an 18-month deal.
Glittering CV
The Istanbul club are certainly not as resonant a name as most of Adebayor’s previous employers. His first club in Europe were Metz. From there he moved to Monaco, and played a part in the run to the 2004 Uefa Champions League final. In January 2006, he joined Arsenal, thriving in North London for three and a half seasons. Manchester City then took him on and he had a productive season there before tensions arose and he was loaned out to Real Madrid, where he won a Copa del Rey. He then spent three and half years with Tottenham.
Title bid
What he has yet to gain is a league winner’s medal. Basaksehir, upwardly mobile and currently second in the Turkish top flight, two points behind Besiktas, may yet provide him with that. Or perhaps a cup. They meet Istanbul giants Galatasaray on Saturday in the last 16 of the Turkish Cup. Their celebrated new striker hopes to make his debut.
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