Date with destiny
Inter take on Lazio this evening in a game which James Horncastle thinks he’s seen before…
Inter had dominated the championship but their lead was being chopped to pieces, all the while Juventus and Roma were gaining, slowly but surely to inevitably overtake them, as the Nerazzurri travelled to Lazio.
Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Roberto Mancini’s men will walk on to the pitch at the Stadio Olimpico on Saturday evening with the events of May 5, 2002, very much on their minds. Six members of the current playing staff were there as Inter lost 4-2 to the Biancocelesti, miserably surrendering the Scudetto to an incredulous Juventus, who had been six points behind with five games to play.
It was never supposed to happen. Inter, under the stewardship of Hector Cuper with a strikeforce comprised of Ronaldo and Christian Vieri, looked set to end a spell of 13 unlucky years without a Serie A title. Their ‘twins’ Lazio had decked out the Olimpico to make it feel like home from home. Laziali swapped their blue and white colours for the blue and black of Inter. The Curva Sud and surrounding stands were a sea of Interisti, while the Curva Nord was awash with banners that read: “Neither Roma nor Juventus, we want Inter to be champions.”
But instead of riding this wave of collective enthusiasm all the way to victory, Inter went blue in the face and drowned under the expectations of the 75,000 supporters. Coach Cuper’s tenth cigarette dwindled between his fingers, President Massimo Moratti stood dejected in the stands and Ronaldo sat crying with his head in his hands. Laziali looked at Interisti, Interisti looked at Laziali in an awkward and embarrassed stare. What they had just witnessed was akin to hara-kiri, a form of Japanese ritual suicide.
That year, 2002, wasn’t an anomaly either. Lazio have broken Inter’s hearts before, defeating the Beneamata 1-0 on the last day of the season in 1935 thanks to a goal, like Diego Simeone’s 67 years later, from an ex-Interista, Virgillio Felice Levratto. Funnily enough, Juventus stole in to win that title as well.
Could it happen again this year, only now with Roma leapfrogging the Nerazzurri? The parallels are unnerving. Inter – as in the final five games of the 2001-02 season – have only taken seven points from their last five matches. Lazio are in no mood to capitulate either. The Aquilotti have won six games in a row at the Olimpico, are unbeaten at home in nearly three months and still have something to play for. Lazio booked a place in the UEFA Cup by beating Inter five years ago and they will move one step closer to a European berth with a victory on Saturday night.
One cannot help but feel that the destinies of these two clubs are intertwined. Roberto Mancini cut his teeth as a Coach with Lazio, his deputy Sinisa Mihajlovic is a legend among Biancocelesti fans, Dejan Stankovic and Cesar wore the captain’s armband while Hernan Crespo – who is likely to start – scored 39 goals in 54 games at the club.
Will such close ties help the Nerazzurri? Rome is a strange place at the moment with Romanisti supporting Laziali and Laziali supporting Interisti, but Biancocelesti President Claudio Lotito underlined that there would be no funny business. When asked if he would help Inter, he courageously admitted: “We don’t adhere to such considerations, we’ll do our best on the pitch.”
Fate certainly isn’t smiling on Inter at the moment…
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იტალიური ფეხბურთის ბრიგადა, FORZA ITALIA! La Parte Decima...
