What Next For Inter After Winning The Champions League?

It is quite early to dis­cuss next season’s Cham­pi­ons League par­tic­u­larly with the World Cup loom­ing ahead but Inter’s his­toric tre­ble was much more than a great achieve­ment. It proved once again how dif­fi­cult it is to repeat as a cham­pion in Europe’s elite club com­pe­ti­tion. For the Ner­az­zurri win­ning the Cham­pi­ons League is the ulti­mate expe­ri­ence hav­ing waited for more than four decades to repeat as cham­pi­ons of Europe.

Pres­i­dent Mas­simo Moratti helped fund the build­ing of the Ner­az­zurri squad and brought in Por­tuguese coach Jose Mour­inho with the spe­cific objec­tive of bring­ing Euro­pean glory to Milan con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent Serie A title holder have not won the Cham­pi­ons League since the 1960s. Pre­vi­ous boss Roberto Mancini suc­ceeded in break­ing the dom­i­nance of Juven­tus and Milan since the early 1990s but failed to com­bine domes­tic suc­cess with an extended run in Europe’s elite com­pe­ti­tion as he never guided the Ner­az­zurri to the Final.

Mour­inho suc­ceeded in win­ning Serie A, Coppa Italia and the Cham­pi­ons League yet he is rac­ing to the exit door leav­ing the Ner­az­zurri in a del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion fol­low­ing the best sea­son in the club’s his­tory. Play­ers such as Maicon and Diego Mil­ito are now being linked with a move to Real Madrid which is Mourinho’s likely des­ti­na­tion. It is only time before Mour­inho is con­firmed as the boss in Madrid unless he has a change of heart and opts to stay with the Ner­az­zurri. Other clubs are begin­ning to assess their chances of lur­ing some of Inter’s key play­ers to leave the penin­sula as Arse­nal have report­edly shown inter­est in goal­keeper Julio Cesar while Man­ches­ter City are look­ing to cap­ture mid­fielder Este­ban Cam­bi­asso. These reports might not become real­ity but all these claims are a major dis­trac­tion for a club cel­e­brat­ing a his­toric tre­ble and with some of the star play­ers headed to South Africa 2010.

Assum­ing Mour­inho and some of the play­ers jump ship, the Ner­az­zurri will be los­ing some key com­po­nents while skip­per Javier Zanetti is only get­ting older despite his con­sis­tent dis­plays. Zanetti deserves credit for his fight­ing spirit and for putting in solid per­for­mances time and again despite his age. Below is a brief look at some of Inter’s main com­peti­tors for next season:

Barcelona: The for­mer hold­ers were ousted by Inter and will be look­ing to regain their lost title. Barca are one of the most tal­ented teams in the world with Lionel Messi and Xavi Her­nan­dez lead­ing the charge. Barca have added a star name in the shape of striker David Villa while the Cata­lans remain in pur­suit of Arse­nal skip­per Cesc Fab­re­gas. If they do sign Fab­re­gas then the team will likely start the next La Liga sea­son and Cham­pi­ons League cam­paign as one of the favourites.

Real Madrid: The record win­ners of the Cham­pi­ons League will wel­come with open arms Mour­inho who has made it clear he will only leave the Ner­az­zurri for Madrid. In Madrid he will have greater indi­vid­ual tal­ent to work with yet less of a cohe­sive unit and a weaker team spirit. Mour­inho will be moti­vated to turn this team of stars into a strong and uni­fied squad. Los Galac­ti­cos already have for­mer Milan idol Kaka and world record sign­ing Cris­tiano Ronaldo in their ranks but it would not be a sur­prise if Mour­inho asked for Maicon and Diego Mil­ito to be signed from Inter. If they do, then Los Galac­ti­cos will be con­sid­ered as a firm favourite con­sid­er­ing they only missed on La Liga title by three points and many for­get it does take time for news play­ers to gel together.

Chelsea: Iron­i­cally Mour­inho was shown the doors at Stam­ford Bridge because he failed to bring Euro­pean glory to the Lon­don club but he did pun­ish his for­mer employ­ers by elim­i­nat­ing them in the knock­out stages of the Cham­pi­ons League by beat­ing them twice home and away. Chelsea hired for­mer Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti and the Ital­ian suc­ceeded in lead­ing the Blues to a his­toric dou­ble by win­ning the Pre­mier League and FA Cup in his first sea­son in charge. Ancelotti made it clear his main objec­tive for next sea­son is to repeat the domes­tic dou­ble and to win in Europe. While Chelsea have a strong squad with expe­ri­ence and tal­ent, the play­ers as indi­vid­u­als are below the tal­ent level of Span­ish giants Real and Barca.

Bay­ern Munich: Bay­ern proved they are a solid team after a slow start to the sea­son and the final in Madrid was per­haps a small rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their sea­son as they only began to show their poten­tial after con­ced­ing the first goal to Inter’s hero Mil­ito. The Bavar­i­ans will have Arjen Robben (despite rumours link­ing him with Juven­tus;  just unlikely to hap­pen for a num­ber of rea­sons) and French star Franck Ribery will appar­ently return after miss­ing the Cham­pi­ons League final due to sus­pen­sion. The Ger­mans are a solid group but like Chelsea they are not on par with Real and Barca if indi­vid­u­als are com­pared on a posi­tion by posi­tion basis.

Man­ches­ter United: Man­ches­ter have one of the best man­agers in Sir Alex Fer­gu­son but he can cer­tainly be stub­born lead­ing him to make the odd mis­take here and there, par­tic­u­larly when it comes to offload­ing cer­tain play­ers or refus­ing to bring in the appro­pri­ate play­ers to replace out­go­ing stars. The Red Dev­ils did not replace Cris­tiano Ronaldo and their chal­lenge for Chelsea in the Pre­mier­ship and before that in the Cham­pi­ons League tie against Bay­ern  fal­tered once it became clear Wayne Rooney is car­ry­ing injury. If Man­ches­ter do not sign a cou­ple of solid play­ers, in par­tic­u­lar one goal scorer to com­ple­ment Rooney, then they will likely fall short in the early knock­out stages with per­haps a quarter-final spot at best.

There are other less likely con­tenders but the strongest ones would be Ital­ian duo Roma and Milan yet the two sides have a num­ber of lim­i­ta­tions such as their restricted bud­get for bring­ing in play­ers and in the case of the Rossoneri an aging squad. Milan will need Brazil­ian stars Ronald­inho and Alexan­dre Pato to stay and will hope a capa­ble coach will take charge at Milanello to pro­mote a few promis­ing play­ers from the youth sec­tor and sign a num­ber of qual­ity play­ers to rein­force the team. As for Roma they have do not have a deep bench and their first team is often rid­dled with injuries due to the age of some key play­ers such as Francesco Totti. It is unlikely either squad will win the Cham­pi­ons League but they can play the role of a spoiler if their stars remain healthy and fit.

It is quite hard to repeat in the Cham­pi­ons League as shown by the famous Milan side in the 1990s which dis­man­tled Barca 4–0 in an epic encounter only to loss the next year in the final to Ajax Ams­ter­dam who in turn were defeated the fol­low­ing year by Juven­tus. The Bian­coneri would go on to play in two more con­sec­u­tive finals yet the curse of repeat­ing would also prove to be their down­fall despite hav­ing the likes of Zine­dine Zidane and Alessan­dro Del Piero (at his peak).

Tagged as: Ancelotti, barcelona, bayern munich, Bianconeri, C. Ronaldo, Cambiasso, champions league, chelsea, Coppa Italia, D. Milito, Del Piero, FA Cup, Fabregas, Giallorossi, Inter, J. Zanetti, juventus, Kaka, La Liga, Los Galacticos, Maicon, manchester city, manchester united, Messi, Milan, Moratti, Mourinho, Nerazzurri, Pato, R. Mancini, real madrid, Red Devils, Ribery, Robben, Roma, ronaldinho, Rooney, Rossoneri, serie a, Sir Alex Ferguson, South Africa 2010, Totti, Villa, xavi, Zidane