Calcio: A History of Italian Football. John Foot
and time again, to crumble under pressure. Successive Inter teams have made collapse into an art form, specializing in tantalizing their long-suffering fans with a taste of glory, before crushing their hopes with an inevitable self-inflicted debacle. The club has even been called ‘the coitus interruptus of Italian football’.3 An industry now exists around this collective psychodrama. In 2002–2003 alone, in the wake of Inter’s latest and most spectacular flop, as they threw away yet another championship, a series of best-selling books was published around this very theme. A game was even put on sale: Perdentopoli (Loseopoly), based on Monopoly. Journalist and Inter fan Beppe Severgnini published two volumes entitled Interismi and More Interismi.4 Another popular title depicted an Inter fan on a psychiatrist’s couch, and Minimo Moratti was dedicated to the errors of Inter’s generous president, Massimo Moratti, son of Angelo.5 Moratti was often blamed for everything that had gone wrong with Inter. One well-known fan went as far as to say that if the Inter president had been Mayor of Milan, the city would have ‘looked like Berlin in 1945’.6 Other tomes were aimed at those Milan and Juventus fans who enjoy winding up their Interisti friends (and in Italy, everybody has an Interista friend). One of these titles was a small book full of jokes. Its title? Non vincete mai. ‘You lot never win’.7 A sample joke: Christ is on the cross when Moratti walks by. ‘Help, help me,’ says Christ, ‘please pull out the nails from my hand.’ Moratti, generous as ever, goes up to Christ and pulls one nail out. Christ thanks him. ‘Please, the other one, the other one.’ Moratti obliges. Immediately, Christ claps his hands together and laughs. Non vincete mai, he sings, joyously.
In 2005 another joke did the rounds, in the wake of Pope John Paul II’s death. Inter would beat Milan, it was said, because they only win ‘every time a Pope dies’, an Italian phrase for ‘very rarely indeed’. Inter, of course, lost both games to Milan.
The non vincete mai chant cuts deep as it is based upon the Inter curva’s favourite chant – non mollare mai8 – ‘never give up’. Moreover, since 1989, Inter’s rivals have never stopped winning. During Inter’s drought, Milan have won six championships and three European Cups. The wind-up is strengthened every time a trophy is added to Berlusconi’s already bulging cabinet.
This history of failure has reinforced a certain kind of interista psychology, marked by bursts of anger (above all directed at Inter’s players, managers and presidents), black humour, fatalism, cynicism (conspiracy theories, especially after the ‘great theft’ of 2001, when the referee refused an obvious penalty against Juventus) and impatience. Players have found it hard to play for Inter over the years. The whole team is hounded by debate, rancour and bad behaviour – nervosismo. Young players don’t last long. One bad performance, or perhaps just a misplaced pass, and you are mercilessly whistled. Occasionally, this anger transforms itself into violence. After a home European defeat the Inter fans caused a riot. Following a 6–0 rout away to Parma, the Inter team bus was petrol-bombed by its own fans. Restaurants part-owned by top players have been attacked. And there was more as bad behaviour became synonymous with Inter’s hard-core curva. In 2001 Inter fans managed to smuggle a motorbike into the second tier of the stadium. It had a Bergamo number plate – Inter were playing Atalanta. A group of fans then proceeded to destroy the motorbike before pushing it over the edge of the guard-rail, whence it crashed onto the emptied terraces below.
Inter’s fans were at the end of their tether. In 2004, the whole curva left the stadium seven minutes from the end of Inter-Empoli (0–0 at the time), after promising that they would ‘get their clubs out’ and accusing their players of playing ‘only for money’. Empoli won the game, in extra-time. A group of 500 fans then besieged the players’ exit, only dispersing after a delegation of players had come out to speak to them. Inter’s vast economic power has not been able to buy the club many trophies. Despite their undoubted position as one of the big three of Italian football, Inter have been forced to sit back and watch as Juventus, Milan and even the Rome clubs have shared championships amongst themselves. Losing to Milan twice in the Champions League in three years was the last straw. In April 2005 flares and fireworks rained down from the Inter curva with some seventeen minutes of the tie still to play. The game was called off, and Inter fans were banned from the next four European games. The psychodrama had become an international issue.
In the dark 1990s, Inter transformed a series of supposed stars into nonentities. Some of these were just bad buys, but others went on to do well elsewhere, proving that the problem lay with Inter, and not with the players themselves. Many of these players have become cult figures, after their departure. Serbian striker Darko ‘the Cobra’ Pancev was signed in 1992 after winning the European Cup with Red Star Belgrade. He went on to play just nineteen games in four years, scoring a miserable three goals. Dennis Bergkamp came from Ajax in 1993 amidst much fanfare. He lasted two years, 52 games and eleven goals. His second season was particularly poor, with just three goals. Bergkamp went on to become an Arsenal legend. Clarence Seedorf fell into the same category – a talented player who failed with Inter and, horror of horrors, went on to become a Milan player (where he has won everything there is to be won). Roberto Baggio was hardly given a chance by manager Marcello Lippi, who often left him on the bench. Most Inter fans never forgave English manager Roy Hodgson for selling on a young Roberto Carlos after just 34 games for the club. Perhaps most infamously, Inter purchased a Brazilian defender called Gilberto da Silva Mello in 1999. He was, allegedly, very good at five-a-side football and had been recommended by Ronaldo. He appeared just once in Serie A, and once in the Italian Cup, both times as a substitute, before returning to Brazil. Again, the problem was Inter’s, as Gilberto went on to play for the national team on a number of occasions.
Why have Inter been so short on victories? It has certainly not been a question of money. Moratti has poured considerable quantities of his personal fortune into the team since taking over in 1995. However, his forays into the transfer market have often been less than successful and Inter has a long history of buying poor foreign players. A second explanation is, simply, an astonishing run of bad luck. Ronaldo injured himself twice, very seriously, whilst with Inter and ended up playing just a handful of games in three years after a fantastic first season. Moratti had not been particularly fortunate with his managers, and tended to chop and change. Defeat after defeat led to a siege mentality amongst players and staff, and each year the pressure got worse.
A New Great Inter? The scandal and the rebirth of the blue-and-blacks, 2006–7
Calciopoli changed everything, almost overnight, in 2006 – including the understanding of Inter’s past. Suddenly, the team, its managers and its presidents had an overarching explanation for years of disastrous failure. They had been robbed and now that the championship was ‘honest’, they were the best team by a long way. A record 17 wins in a row in the 2006–7 season, and a scudetto that saw Inter crush all their rivals (and which included two derby victories) seemed to prove this theory right. But things were not so simple. For one thing, Inter’s closest rivals were either in Serie B (Juventus) or had point deductions to deal with (Fiorentina and Milan). Patrick Vieira and Zlatan Ibrahimovic – key players in the 2006–7 season – would never have come to Inter if Juventus had not been relegated. One very good year was not quite enough to wipe out 17 seasons of bad memories. Some championships had clearly been ‘stolen’, most notably that of 1998, but on the pitch Inter had been second, or third, or fourth best on many occasions, and Moggi could not be blamed for everything. Calciopoli was an extremely useful alibi, but it could not disguise all the failings of the past. Moreover, some Inter fans were worn out by constant disappointment. They had, as comedian-fan Paolo Rossi (not to be confused with the player) put it, ‘forgotten how to celebrate’.
Inter finally clinched the first title (won on the pitch) in 18 years in April 2007. Parties followed all over Italy, Inter’s players danced on the roof