Chapter 906

After the Manchester derby, the Champions League 16 knockout match is close at hand.

United's opponents are inter, the treble winner of last season, which is Gao Xiaodong's former owner.

If at the beginning of the season, Manchester United fans can know in advance that they will face Inter in the final 16 knockout, they will certainly be damned.

But now Manchester United are in a much better mood and would like to thank former Reds coach Rafael Benitez.

Of course, now Benitez is also the former Inter manager.

Although the two cornerstones of Inter's winning the treble, Jose and Gao Xiaodong, left Inter in the summer, the basic framework of Inter is still in place. The change of the core from Gao Xiaodong to Sneijder is half a step down, and the change of manager from Benitez to Jose is half a step down.

Such inter do not dare to say how good they can continue to achieve in the Champions League, the last four are guaranteed, and there will be no suspense in Serie A.

However, after half a year of Benitez's management, Inter's dressing room is in chaos and in a low state, which is unbearable.

Benitez's Serie A debut was 0-0 draw by Bologna, which also indicates that the Spanish coach's road is doomed to be difficult. After the next three wins in a row, inter reached the top of the table, which was the most used position for Inter, but it turned out to be a flash in the pan. Losing to Roma 0-1 in the fifth round is a turning point for the Azzurri in the new season. After their home 0-0 draw with Juve in the sixth round, they lost their leading position and were held down by rivals AC Milan.

From the 10th round of 1-1 draw with Brescia, inter started the embarrassing four rounds of invincibility, from the 12th to the 15th round, four games suffered three defeats. Losing at home to AC rice is an ancient record - a record of 46 unbeaten home games for 967 days, which was sealed. At the same time, 53 games of various events have been ended since November 2008, and the "happiest home in Europe" has ended. The away defeat to Lazio also made the record of seven years unbeaten for the blue hawks vanish, and the city rivals took the opportunity to leave inter far away.

Half way later, Inter Milan were 13 points away from the leader AC Milan and fell to No. 5, which is the worst record of the same period in the past six seasons. After the new year, the Nerazzurri had to struggle for the Champions League.

The league is so bleak, and Inter's performance in the Champions League is also disappointing. Since the 2004-04 season, Tottenham's team has not only won the second place in the European Group, but also won the second place in the group. 3-1 defeat at Tottenham, 3-0 defeat at Bremen, Bell's hat trick in meacha, these are the memories of the blue black fans.

And the top 16 draw to the best united in Europe, also almost indicates that the defending champion Inter Milan's road to the Champions League this season may end in the top 16.

During the winter break, inter won the World Club Cup, which is a good thing for Inter. Anyway, it's a trophy for clubs all over the world. If handled well, maybe it can be a turning point for Inter to regain their momentum.

However, the World Club Cup not only did not give inter another life, but also exacerbated Inter's internal contradictions. With Benitez's confidence in winning the World Club Cup, it is too stingy to bombard Moratti's recruitment policy.

Moratti just won the treble last season. When he was arrogant to the extreme, when he heard Benitez criticizing his recruitment policy, Moratti, who was supervising in Tokyo, was furious and came up. When he returned to Italy, Moratti directly fired Benitez and invited former arch rival coach Leonardo.

The biggest culprit is Rafael Benitez.

The Spaniards have taken over the three crown team that Mourinho has built up in the summer. Since the day he entered the base of pinardina, Benitez has decided to erase the mark left by the madman in Inter. Benitez asked to remove the picture of Mourinho, which also caused the dissatisfaction of the players, which caused the gap between Benitez and the players.

Tactically, Benitez and Mourinho have a very different core idea. The Spaniard emphasized the tactics of high position closing down, and asked the team to pay more attention to the control of the scene. However, he seldom emphasized the control of the ball and high position closing down, focusing on the counterattack. After Benitez changed his tactics, inter had a high percentage of possession, but the attack efficiency was extremely low. He couldn't win against the weak team and lost against the strong team.

Of course, it's not Rafa Benitez who made such a bad result. He can't carry such a big pot. The second biggest culprit of Inter is president Moratti.

After more than ten years of investment regardless of cost, Moratti seems to have lost interest in continuing to struggle.

Last summer's transfer market was Moratti's most frugal season as president. Inter Milan let go Gao Xiaodong, but after getting 80 million euros, they only introduced a substitute goalkeeper castellazi, while biabiani only redeemed half of the ownership, while curtinho was a deal that had been finalized two years ago. The age of the team is too old, and the investment is insufficient, once there are injuries, no one will be on top, which is obviously an important reason for the impact of Inter's performance.In addition to the head coach and president to bear the greatest responsibility, Inter's core people are also to blame. In addition to Eto'o's brave state and scoring goals in all seven competitions this year, the state of Mileto, Sneijder, Maicon and others after winning the treble all declined sharply. Mileto didn't have the valiant ability to score last season. Sneijder scored the most goals in Serie A, but didn't score a single goal. Maicon was completely knocked out by Tottenham winger bell in the Champions League.

Such a group of "old man" no fighting spirit, Inter's lightning crash is not surprising.

In this half season, what Inter fans miss most is Jose and Gao Xiaodong. Almost all the Nerazzurri group think that if they leave one behind, inter will not collapse this season at least.

Of course, some media and fans think that Jose and Gao Xiaodong are a pair of slicks. They just see that Inter's state and luck last season can't be copied, so they decided to leave at the end of the season.

It turns out that Jose and Gao Xiaodong are winners in life. After changing their owners, Real Madrid is second only to Barcelona, while Manchester United is the hottest team in Europe.

After Leonardo's succession, Inter's performance has improved, with seven wins and two losses in seven Serie A matches.

But such a record can not change the pattern of Serie A, they are still 11 points behind AC Milan, the serie a champion has no hope, now can only pray that in the Champions League to beat the Champions League veteran Manchester United, otherwise it is a season of empty.