The dawn of a new era

The longest engagement in Italian football (as Giacinto Facchetti, the Inter Milan president, describes it) ends at 9pm on 7 July 2004. Roberto Mancini finally consents, signing a contract which ties him to the Black-and-Blues for three years. Such is the natural conclusion of a courtship which started years ago, when Mancio was a young promise at Bologna, and was nearly consummated in 1995 and 1996, when the Samp captain planned to leave Genoa and was enticed by Massimo Moratti’s promises.

Inter’s approaches have been even more insistent in 2003 and 2004. Now the accompanying drama, which has carried on throughout the spring and summer, is finally at an end. For the last few weeks, since 16 June, the commotion has been at crescendo level. After accepting Alberto Zaccheroni’s resignation, Inter Milan officially announced the arrival of their new manager, but it would take weeks for the whole matter to be settled. Lazio had no intention of letting the coach from Jesi go, as he had signed with the White-and-Blues until 2008. It took an endless number of meetings and discussions before the parties came to an agreement, which includes (or so the press says) the loan of four Black-and-Blues players to Lazio: Mohamed Kallon, Daniele Adani, Alessandro Potenza and Abdullah Isah Eliakwu. The club from Milan denies that this is part of the agreement, but either way, in the end, Mancini is officially released from his obligations with Lazio.

On 8 July a very tanned Roberto can oversee his first Black-and-Blues training session, at Pinetina. In the morning, he wears a white t-shirt emblazoned with the team sponsor’s logo, and black shorts; in the afternoon, for the official introduction to the press, a grey suit, crisp white shirt and a dark tie. He smiles for the cameras, greets everyone, shakes hands with Facchetti – who breaks the ice, telling everyone about their ‘engagement’ – then Roberto takes the floor. His first thought is for Lazio: he offers ‘A big thank you and a hug, for all they did for me.’ ‘I was sorry to leave,’ he says, ‘but sometimes our paths in life lead us in different directions. I am also sorry for those supporters who feel betrayed; this is not what has happened. I hope things work out for them all in the future.’

Moving on from his recent past to the present, he says, ‘Being here, coaching Inter Milan, is the ideal situation for me. We are talking about one of the most important clubs in the world, with a great hunger for victory – just like me.’ Despite this though, the Black-and-Blues haven’t won anything at all for the last 15 years. To those pointing out this fact to him, Mancini replies, ‘Like all managers, I am ambitious. I am here to win, and I’ll do what it takes to get there. It is wrong to say that Inter Milan must win, because they haven’t been doing so for many years. In order to win, Inter Milan must play well, and deserve whatever title they will achieve. You win by playing: so I would like Inter Milan to enjoy playing; if they do, their supporters will have a good time, too. Playing football is the best thing in the world, and there are so many good players here.’ He does not fail to mention them: he is happy to meet Vieri, Stankovic and Verón again – the latter on a loan from Chelsea. He says that not many clubs can rely on so many champions, and compliments the club on its vast list of players.

In the summer, the playing roster is augmented by Giuseppe Favalli and Sinisa Mihajlovic, who join from Lazio; Argentinians Nicolas Burdisso and Esteban Cambiasso, Dutchman Edgar Davids and Zé Maria, the Brazilian. Mancini has a smashing team on his hands; he has players he knows well – or at least players he asked for or recommended to the club – and he can count on a trustworthy technical team, including his masseur, Sergio Viganó. ‘Now,’ he concludes, ‘we can only hope things turn out for the best.’

They are starting from a position of immense promise, so that Moratti, on the eve of the new season, admits that he is rather happy. ‘We have a manager I believe in, 100 per cent,’ he says. ‘In these first months’ work he has demonstrated skills that I did not imagine he had: method, diligence, knowledge, a solid and straightforward game plan. I can say that, with him, we are at the dawn of a new era. And for once, I start the season without the obsession of winning right away, even though we all know that we must do all that we can to get results.’

A draw in their first league game against Chievo is followed by several more – too many, really. In the Champions League, on the other hand, things are going well. In the qualifiers, in August, the Black-and-Blues knock out FC Basel, with Adriano – the ‘Emperor’ – in top form. Things continue to go well in the group stage, wherein they defeat Werder Bremen, Anderlecht and Valencia without many problems. Indeed, at Mestalla on 20 October, the score is almost embarrassing: 5–1 to the Black-and-Blues.

Four days later comes the ‘Madonnina’ derby (this epithet being derived from the statue of the Virgin Mary on top of Milan’s Dome), the first in Mancini’s life. It is very different from what he has been used to with Samp and Lazio. ‘In Genoa and Rome, the derby was considered the most important day of the year,’ the manager says. ‘That changed with time, more or less. But in Milan the two clubs facing each other have already won many scudetti, and all sorts of trophies. It is an important match, but it is not an end in itself.’

Roberto tries to dampen the initial euphoria. ‘In the Champions League tournament,’ he says, ‘we are achieving beautiful and important victories, and that makes us work better. But we still have a lot to do; we need time, and we cannot glorify one result only.’ How does he see the match? ‘Inter Milan will need to play calmly, knowing they have the potential and, if they do things properly, they can get some satisfaction out of it. We must really trust ourselves. This is our first truly big challenge in the championship – but we are just at the beginning, and I don’t think we could call this match decisive.’

Decisive it might not be, but Inter haven’t defeated AC Milan for 963 days, since 3 March 2002. In the intervening period, the Black-and-Blues have totalled four defeats out of four in the league and draws in either leg of a Champions League semi-final, at the end of which their neighbours went through on away goals. It proves to be no different this time, either. It is a good game, a lot of fun, quite spectacular and with many chances to score – but in the end, the score is 0–0. AC Milan are a sound team; Inter are still under construction. The challenge will not end here.

Two weeks later, Lazio arrive at the Meazza Stadium. When Mancini takes the pitch, the Lazio fans are not very welcoming. The chanting is awful, and there are two banners which are not easily forgotten: ‘No forgiveness for those who betray’ reads one; the other is ‘2003–2004, the Mancini plan: coaching Inter Milan for the Champions League.’ The accusation is that their former coach deliberately played the wrong line-up in a game against Brescia, which could have secured Lazio a place in the European competition. The accusation is returned to sender in disbelief and indignation. The divorce from his old club left some scars, not only among supporters but also with the White-and-Blues management. Claudio Lotito, the new president, wants €5 million from Mancini as compensation for breaking his contract. The answer is, ‘I am no moneybox.’ The game, which ends 1–1, is a bad-tempered affair and Mancini takes it out on the referee. ‘Shame on you. You can only referee Milan and Juve,’ he shouts, earning himself a two-match suspension and a €2,500 fine. Same old Mancio.

Draws seem to be becoming the Black-and-Blues’ trademark; they will ultimately register 18 of them in the league, as many as their victories. There are also two defeats though: one in the away game against Messina, the other at San Siro, on 27 February, in the return match against Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan.

The Red-and-Blacks, in fact, are an opponent not only in Serie A but in the Champions League quarter-finals, too. This fixture, on 12 April 2005, descends into some of the worst scenes you could possibly expect see in a football stadium. AC Milan, with a 2–0 lead from the first leg, are also ahead on the night, through Shevchenko. Mancini tries everything to save the tie, and in the second half, Inter have the ball in the net through Cambiasso – but the German referee, Marcus Merk, disallows it. The crowd kicks up a rumpus. All sorts of things are thrown on to the field from the stand behind the goal: bottles, lighters, coins, flares. Dida, the AC Milan keeper, is hit on the shoulder by a Bengala light and goes down. The referee does what he can to enable the match to continue, but he has to send both teams to the changing rooms in order to have the pitch cleaned. The match is resumed, for a time, but since the northern stand will not stop throwing things, it later has to be called off for good; AC Milan are adjudged the winners.

‘We are sorry about how it ended,’ comments Mancini, on the spur of the moment. ‘Do we risk a long disqualification­? Well, I can’t say anything other than we’re sorry. We’ll see about the rest.’ The Uefa verdict comes, without delay: Inter Milan must play four European games behind closed doors. ‘It is an awful lot,’ reflects the manager, ‘the club loses out, and so do those supporters who have nothing to do with this. Things like this shouldn’t happen, but they do. We are filled with deep regret, because football should be fun, regardless of the fact that one can win or lose. Only a few made a mistake, and we will have to deal with the consequences.’ Mancini has one more point to make: ‘There was only one thing I didn’t like: every time something like this happens, everyone turns into a moralist. But not much has been done to prevent these incidents, only words. Something more could, and should, have been done.’

Once the unfortunate chapter of the Champions League is closed, attention turns to the league championship. In the end, Inter Milan rank third, with 72 points, while Fabio Capello’s Juventus are top of the league with 86 points and AC Milan finish second. The following year, it will all be wiped out by the ‘Calciopoli’ scandal: Juventus will be relegated to Serie B and stripped of their title (which will not be assigned for that season).

Before all that, though, there is the cup. On 15 June 2005, the Black-and-Blues defeat Roma at San Siro with a score of 1–0 (following a 2–0 win in the first leg), and after a 23-year absence, the Coppa Italia returns to the Inter trophy room. It is party time at the Meazza Stadium, where the crowd also has the added bonus of being able to boo Adriano Galliani, AC Milan president and also president of Serie A. Their Red-and-Black counterparts lost the Champions League final on penalties, against Liverpool, after six minutes of pure madness.

Mancini is happy to have kept his promise; that is, taking one trophy home – even though it is neither the league championship nor the Champions League. His personal tally of Italy Cups is beginning to look phenomenal: he won six as a player, now he has three as a manager. In the stands, Massimo Moratti is all smiles: it is the second trophy for the club since he took charge. ‘This Coppa Italia,’ he will later say, ‘is a reward for Mancini’s hard work, which was important to give more confidence and self-assurance to our players. It is as if a spell has been broken, now we can look to higher ground in the future.’

His words prove to be prophetic. The following season, Mancini’s second with the Black-and-Blues, starts in the same way the previous campaign ended – with a trophy. This time it is the Italian Super Cup. The club haven’t won this title since 1989 but at the Delle Alpi Stadium in Turin, in the pouring rain, Juan Sebastián Veron scores the only goal of the game in the first half of extra time. It is Mancio’s first Super Cup as a manager, to add to the two he won as a player, with Samp and Lazio.

There is also the added bonus of beating Fabio Capello, the Black-and-White coach he has never been on great terms with. The two men don’t think much of one another and have never taken the trouble to hide it. The papers talk about their verbal exchanges, on and off the pitch (‘rude’, ‘arrogant’ and ‘big-headed’ are some of the terms bandied about). They have been arguing since Roberto started playing and Capello started coaching, and they have continued now that both are in management. Their early head-to-heads were when Mancini was in charge of Fiorentina and then Lazio, while Capello was with Roma; now Capello is managing Juventus and Mancini is with Inter Milan. ‘We don’t like each other, there is no point in denying that,’ they admit. They are too different – or maybe too similar, wanting to win at all costs. ‘We are from different generations,’ Mancio concludes politely.

Their struggle for supremacy continues, after the Super Cup, into the league championship. The Black-and-Whites hit the ground running, and they are off. Inter Milan, who made good signings in the summer transfer market, bringing in Luis Figo, Walter Samuel and Santiago Solari from Real Madrid, plus David Pizarro and Julio Cesar, cannot keep up. And by the end of January, Roberto Mancini doesn’t believe his side will be able to catch the runaway leaders. He says it for luck, but he will be proved correct. Juventus are sailing away, and no one can put salt on their tail.

Things go better for the Black-and-Blues in the Champions League, but only until they reach the Madrigal Stadium. It is 4 April 2006 and Inter are playing in the quarter-finals against the Spanish team of Villarreal. The Milan team have a 2–1 lead from the first leg but on the night they cannot get their act together; they have no legs, no head and no character. They flunk their main examination and they are knocked out of Europe by the team known as the ‘Yellow Submarine’, a provincial club coached by Manuel Pellegrini. A goal by Rodolfo Arruabarrena, Villarreal’s Argentinian defender, seals the historic disaster. Mancini is shattered. He really believed in this cause and has given his all to Inter Milan, putting the same passion into this adventure as he had into Sampdoria’s quest for the scudetto, all those years ago.

He was always fronting up, never hiding behind excuses. His choices were brave: he bet on good football and good men, some of whom nevertheless failed to deliver what was expected of them when it came to the Madrigal challenge – starting with Adriano, the ‘Emperor’. Someone even suggests that, maybe, someone in the dressing-room is against Mancio. Roberto, however, does not shirk his responsibility, and apologises. ‘I believe it can happen, that you lose a match,’ he says, ‘but this time it happened in the worst way possible – we did not play at all.’

His disappointment and anger deepen a few days later. At the Malpensa airport, a group of Inter’s hard-core supporters are waiting for the team to return following a trip to Ascoli for a league match. Their faces concealed by scarves, they clap ironically inside the terminal; then, outside, comes the assault: Cristiano Zanetti is hit on the back of the head. ‘End the violence,’ cries Giacinto Facchetti, while Mancini, dispirited, considers leaving again, going abroad. ‘Nowadays, in Italy,’ he says, ‘you just cannot go and watch a football match, and return home feeling upset because you lost, without thinking up something else to do. I am a manager because I love this sport very much, and it is passion that carries me forwards. But everything is getting more and more difficult here. After what happened at Malpensa, my decision to leave the country is only getting nearer.’

The protests are not over, though. On 14 April, the day of the 249th Milan derby, hard-core supporters boycott the game. Their motivation has been made public during the previous week, after the aggression towards the players. A representative for the curva nord (northern stand) explained, ‘We don’t want the whole stand to get the blame for the actions of a few mavericks.’ The whole stand is sealed off with duct tape; there is only a huge banner, bearing the message ‘We are not here, because you never have been.’ And below, ‘It is OK to lose, but not to lose one’s dignity.’ AC Milan supporters add insult to injury with their chanting. There are chants for the president: ‘Moratti is leaving? I’ll buy a couple of trash bins from him’; there are chants for the manager: ‘Mancini stays, the club in disarray’; and there are chants for the players: ‘Villar-real-ise our dreams.’

AC Milan leave San Siro with a smile, having won 1–0. Inter, meanwhile, can wave goodbye to the top of the championship – and even the runner-up slot – as well as the Champions League. Only the Coppa Italy is left for Mancini, who duly claims the trophy, for the second consecutive year, on 11 May, with a 3–1 win over Roma. Still, this time victory doesn’t taste the same as it did twelve months before. It is a small consolation, given the bigger prizes that Mancini and Moratti had set their sights on – such as the league title, which instead goes to Juventus for the 29th time.

Roberto does not know if his marriage to Inter Milan is destined to last. ‘Quite frankly, I have no idea of what will or won’t happen,’ Mancio says. ‘I did my job; I did everything the best way I could. Some things went well, some didn’t, but honestly I believe I did a good job. I have a contract for another year, but contracts don’t matter much. It is Moratti’s call.’

After the Villarreal game and the defeat in the derby, the president is considering a change of direction. He would like to see Fabio Capello, or who knows, perhaps José Mourinho in the Inter Milan dugout. However, after the Coppa Italia final, and Juve’s victory in the championship, he thinks twice. To Sky television, he says, ‘I think we will walk the same road as before.’ He chooses continuity, and confirms that Mancini will remain his man.

Roberto, though, will have a few worries to face up to. There is Adriano, the goalscorer who hasn’t actually been scoring for quite some time, and whose form and attitude have been a real cause for concern; then there is Verón, who has never got along with the Brazilian; there are also other tensions between groups: the Argentinians form a clique, as do the former Lazio players. So first of all, he must reconcile the dressing-room, following the disappointments that have derailed it.

In the meantime, the Calciopoli scandal is uncovered with much sensation, and everything is up for grabs again. It transpires that directors of various football clubs have been having conversations with officials at the Italian Football Federation, the National League of Professionals and the Italian Referees Association, trying – successfully – to influence referee appointments, so that they get referees deemed ‘favourable’ for their matches. Mancini comments that ‘now it is only time to cry and be ashamed. All that is coming out is truly awful, not only in my opinion, but also for all football fans. It is the worst thing that ever happened in the international world of football. I am gobsmacked.’

The scandal swamps everything and everyone within a few days. Franco Carraro resigns the presidency of the Italian Football Federation; Serie A president Adriano Galliani, Juventus general manager Luciano Moggi, and Juventus chairman Antonio Giraudo also resign their posts.

And so we come to 26 July 2006. After the first penalties are handed out to Juventus (stripped of their 2005 and 2006 Serie A titles and relegated to Serie B), Fiorentina (30 points deducted from their 2005/06 points total and a 19-point deduction for 2006/07, later reduced to 15), Lazio (30 points deducted from their 2005/06 points total and an 11-point deduction for 2006/07, later reduced to three), AC Milan (30 points deducted from their 2005/06 tally and a 15-point deduction for 2006/07, later reduced to eight) and Reggina (a 15-point deduction for 2006/07, later reduced to 11), FIGC officially appoints Inter Milan champions of Italy.

The team hears the news on the coach while on their way to the Druso Stadium in Bozen, where they are competing for the Sud Tirolen Cup. Before the match, Roberto Mancini comments on the Federation’s decision. ‘Regardless of how we got here,’ he says, ‘this is the dutiful acknowledgement given to those who do things the right way. We always played fairly, and it is only right that the honest ones win.’