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When Inter Milan and Roma kicked off Saturday in Italy’s Serie A, it was more than a battle between two teams with title aspirations. We apologize, but this video has failed to load. Try refreshing your browser, or
It was also a sack race. And the people facing the sacking were the two coaches, Roma’s Luis Enrique and Gian Piero Gasperini of Inter. The two were appointed in the summer. Heck, sack race? This is more like a sprint.
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“Save yourselves,” was the headline in Saturday morning’s Gazzetta dello Sport, above photographs of the two managers, but they did little to help either’s cause Saturday night, playing to a scoreless tie that was slumber-inducing.
Enrique, who got the Roma job because the club’s sporting director, Walter Sabbatini, said he represented “discontinuity” with the team’s past, has angered fans by slighting longtime Roma icon Francesco Totti, calling him lazy and exiling him to the bench. Roma began the season by being quickly eliminated from the Europa League by Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia, then lost its opening Serie A game to Cagliari.
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Inter owner Moratti, never shy about giving his coach tactical advice (one reason many of them quickly move on) was quick to criticize the formation. Gasperini was quick to take the hint after the loss to Palermo, abandoning the three-man defence in favour of a four-man unit, with a three-man midfield and three front-runners.
At least that bought him some time.
“At the moment, I think it’s a question of waiting, because the match tactics have been changed,” Moratti said last week, but was quick to warn the coach not to revert to that three-man defence. “Should the team play with a four-man defence? Yes.”
The switch didn’t win universal praise, with the Gazzetta dello Sport noting it simply exchanged problems.
“Messy, reckless, exposed and beaten 4-3 (using the 3-4-3 against Palermo),” its report read. “Ordered, immobile, lacking ideas and defeated 1-0 (with the 4-3-3 against Trabzonspor). Which one do you prefer? It’s like choosing between a stomach ache and a headache.”
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By Paul Carbray
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But the coach in real trouble is Gasperini. After all, he’s working for an owner, Massimo Moratti, who’s quick on the trigger when it comes to firing coaches, and he’s guided Inter to the club’s worst start in 90 years.
Inter lost the pre-season SuperCup (which matches the Italian cup winner with the Serie A winner) to AC Milan, dropped the season opener to Palermo, then lost its Champions League start to Turkey’s Trabzonspor. It’s no secret Gasperini was hardly the first choice to become Inter’s fourth coach in a little over a year. After Jose Mourinho bolted to Real Madrid, Moratti hired ex-Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez, who only lasted to January, replacing him with Leonardo, who quit after the season to take an off-field job with Paris Saint-Germain.