Three years ago, under the watchful eye of Massimiliano Allegri and guided by Zlatan, Robinho and Pato, AC Milan lifted the Serie A trophy. The previous season, rivals Inter Milan, managed by José Mourinho, had taken not just the league trophy but three others as well.
Inter, Milan both guilty of clinging too hard to a glorified past
Both AC Milan and Internazionale are frantically grasping at faded glories, hoping they’ll be enough to pull them from the depths of despair.
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Not even five years later, and all the Milan sides have to cling to are their past glories. And that’s exactly what both Inter and Milan are doing on the eve of the Derby della Madonnina, when the teams will clash in an effort to win bragging rights -- because, really, that’s about all they’re going to win this season.
In one corner: the nerazzurri dial it back to the days of calciopoli
After Walter Mazzarri failed to propel Inter higher than fifth in his first season in charge, he was told that it's ok. It seemed like the club understood that Rome wasn't built in a day (or, in this case, that Milan wasn't rebuilt in a day). But with Inter stuck in ninth, and having lost to last-placed Parma, well, that was just too much. Despite continual assurances that his job was safe, after Verona came back to earn a point, Mazzarri had to go.
In came Roberto Mancini. Much has been written about Mancini's previous time at Inter, where he spent nearly four seasons. During that time, Inter picked up three scudetti. Impressive, right? It is until you realize that one was awarded to Inter after Juventus were stripped of their title during the calciopoli scandal, another was clinched when Juventus weren't in Serie A, and the last lifted after Inter lost an 11 point lead, only to grab the title on the final day.
Owner Erick Thohir is likely trying to appease the nerazzurri faithful by bringing in a man who once brought in the trophies. After all, this is a side that lost all of Esteban Cambiasso, Diego Milito and Javier Zanetti over the summer. There's now no one left from the heady days of 2010. The Inter fans could use some tangible proof that their beloved club's success is still within reach.
But with his Inter pedigree, will Mancini manage to last longer than the others? Since Mourinho left, seven managers have taken over his seat in the dugout, with some lasting mere months. That’s often the case in Italy, of course, yet Serie A also remains one of the more tactically-focused leagues. The sides that jump from manager to manager often fail to perform as well as their talent might suggest, because they’re switching from three at the back to four or trying a top-heavy attack. Now, Mancini has to impose his own style on this Inter side -- and he’s got to do it during one of the most important games of the season.
In the other corner: devlish in attack, bedeviled in defense
Think back to that Milan side that won the 2011 scudetto. In addition to those handsome devils up top, who do you remember? Perhaps Thiago Silva and Alessandro Nesta in defense? Gennaro Gattuso playing an enforcer's role? Clarence Seedorf and Andrea Pirlo silkily sweeping through the middle?
Thanks to a change in fortune at Milan, that squad wasn't so much disbanded as dismembered. In the summer of 2012, Zlatan Ibrahimović and Thiago Silva were sold on to Paris Saint-Germain for hefty sums, but that money did little to bring in extraordinary new talent. The club also elected to adopt a policy under which players over age 30 were prohibited from receiving more than year-long extensions on their contracts. By the start of the 2012-13 season, Pirlo, Nesta, Seedorf, Gattuso, Mark van Bommel, Massimo Ambrosini and Filippo Inzaghi were all gone.
Yet the club has failed to stem the rot. Philippe Mexès, Giampaolo Pazzini, Michael Essien, Daniele Bonera, and Alex are all 30 or over, while Nigel de Jong misses the cutoff by a few days. A certain star striker also fits into this category. Fernando Torres certainly looks no closer to rediscovering his elusive form, and is a perfect symbol of a Milan trying to succeed by picking up the forgotten pieces of everyone else's puzzles.
There’s also a belief that the side could be put right again if the squad could just return to their rossoneri roots. Despite the fact that Allegri led the team to first, second, and third place finishes, he was deemed to not have the right spirit -- or perhaps ownership didn’t appreciate Milan resting outside the European positions -- and got the sack. In came Clarence Seedorf, who lasted the rest of the season. After his side finished eighth, Seedorf was replaced by another Milan great, Pippo Inzaghi.
At first, it seemed like Pippo was bringing the right mix of rossoneri spirit and actual skill, with Milan beating Lazio and Parma while scoring eight goals. But then they managed to draw both Empoli and Cesena, and even managed to lose to Palermo. It seems we're now seeing the true Milan: just as fractured, and needing more than some washed-up players and a veteran guiding light.
To Inzaghi's credit, he's managed to make Milan fun again, using Stephan El Shaarawy, Jérémy Ménez and Keisuke Honda up top. But that fun is covering up a decided lack of creativity, and worse, it's doing nothing to hide an ailing, patchwork defense. "Fun" isn't necessarily a synonym of "great", and "great" is what Milan expect to be.
Neither of these sides is going to lift the scudetto, and it’s looking highly unlikely that they’ll finish in the top three. And a win in the Derby della Madonnina will only paper the cracks for a few hours.
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