Saturday, 25 June 2011

A Look At Inter's New Head Coach Gian Piero Gasperini

So after a week or so of wild rumours & intense speculation Inter finally have their new coach, not one of the big names that were either tied up with contracts at other teams or one of the two that said no to us then moved to other clubs (mentioning no names eh! AVB) but in the end Massimo Moratti decided on the mediocre coach who i was backing from the start if we couldn't convince a big name to sign.  The question on everyone's lips though is can he step up to the challenge of returning Inter to being the holders of the Scudetto while retaining our Coppa Italia title and putting in a good showing in the Champions league (Lets face it if we reach the quarters then that's good enough for his first season!)  So in this post i'm going to look at his history and how i see things going with Gian Piero Gasperini at the helm.........


With the bureaucratic formalities to complete before the deal is officially announced with his first Inter press conference we do know that the 53 year old will sign a two year contract of which it has been widely speculated that he will only do one year before Pep Gaurdiola arrives from Barca to take over, but as i say these are just rumours so we have to assume that he will be with us for the full two years (unless of course he does a Benitez on us & turns out to be terrible, though i really can't see that being the case.)

Along with him he's bringing two members of his back room staff who will work alongside the Nerazzurri staff already in place the first of which is his assistant Bruno Caneo who had a 14 year playing career as a midfielder then started his career as a coach in 1991 and became Gasperini's assistant in 2006.  The second to come in is fitness trainer Luca Trucchi who i know nothing about and couldn't find any info on Google so i'll just have to presume he's good enough to do his job at Inter.

So who is Gian Piero Gasperini?  Well he started his career as a midfielder in the Juventus youth system at the age of 9, his senior career started 9 years later where he played a hand full of Coppa Italia matches for Juve before being loaned out to Reggiana and so began what i'd descibe as a 17 year unremarkable playing career in various lower level teams with a stint in Serie A with Pescara in 1987, he retired from playing at the age of 35 in 1993.  The following year he returned to Juve's youth team but this time as coach a job he held until 2003when he joined Serie C1 team Crotone who he lead to promotion to Serie B via the playoffs, in the 2004/2005 season he was fired to be taken back on shortly afterward before he was spotted by an ambitious Genoa in 2006 gaining promotion for the Rossoblu to the top flight in his 1st season.  In the 2008–2009 season, Gasperini led Genoa to fifth place of Serie A, the highest placement for the team in 19 years, securing a UEFA Europa League spot for his club, relaunching players like Diego Milito and Thiago Motta in a 3–4–3 formation and a particularly spectacular football style that was praised throughout Italy, so that José Mourinho, stated that Gasperini was the coach who put him in greater difficulty after matching the 'Special' one tactically in what Jose has since described as the most spectacular 0-0 draes he had every seen.  Also in 2009 he was inline for the job as Sir Alex Ferguson's assistant, such was his growing reputation in the game, but he wanted to stay & guild Genoa to a Champions league spot.  However, a poor start in the 2010–11 season, with 11 points in 10 games despite popular signings such as Luca Toni, Rafinha, Andrea Ranocchia and Kakha Kaladze, caused Gasperini's dismissal from his coaching post on November 8, 2010 and now as you know he has been appointed as the Nerazzurri head coach.

At Inter there will be a necessity to exercise his supreme tactical qualities, with the club having missed out on such direction since Mourinho left a year ago. But they will also need somebody who will be able to nurture the abilities of the bigger stars in their squad such as Wesley Sneijder and Samuel Eto’o, and it is in this that the new boss has no real track record.  So, as he wanders into the great unknown with Inter, Gasperini is being asked to fulfil his destiny in taking the reins at a top European side, while also facing pressure to deliver on a big stage like never before. The next two years will prove whether Ferguson and Mourinho were right about him, or whether Moratti and Branca should have kept on searching.

What can we expect tactically from our new boss?  In the past he's been know to push for free flowing football with his controversial 3-4-3 formation which i know alot of Interista are very dubious about but i believe a fresh approach is exactly what is needed at the club and besides if he uses the right players it should play more like my personal favourite 5-3-2 formation which in my opinion suits the players we have in the ranks as i discussed in my post on the rebuilding of Inter which is handy as it's looking more & more likely there isn't going to be too many new players this summer.  A lot of my fellow Interista have said to me in a recent conversation about formations on Twitter that only having 3 defenders would be suicidal but if he plays Samuel, Ranocchia & Lucio as CB, with Nagatomo & Maicon running the wings as WBs with Zanetti & Cambiasso as CMs also covering back to help out the CBs then sit Sneijder slightly behind the front line of Eto'o & Pazzini we would have pretty much a perfectly balanced formation that can switch from defence to attack in no time at all which is ideal for playing on the counter attack.

All in all Gasperini's appointment at Inter could be a good thing for us as long as he can handle the pressure of being at the helm of the Nerazzurri, but all we can do is have faith in him & see if he can live up to the potential he has shown in the past.  Unfortunately for him the first competitive test he'll face will be a derby match against AC Milan in the Italian Super cup in Beijing so like most of the fans i'm hoping that now the managerial crisis has been sorted we can moved to bring in some excellent players to the Black & Blue side of the San Siro.

No comments:

Post a Comment