DESOLATION ROAD
With the romantic underdog tale of a plucky autocratic nation state’s eye-wateringly expensive, relentless, often hilarious but ultimately successful pursuit of Bigger Cup glory after 14 years of trying being covered at great length elsewhere on Big Website, it behoves Football Daily – a publication more readily associated with abject failure – to sift through the wreckage of Inter’s dismal effort to give PSG anything resembling a game in Munich. A team that less than six weeks ago fancied their chances of winning a league, cup and Bigger Cup treble has just finished the season empty-handed and, while all available evidence suggests there is every chance they would have lost against the gegenpressing dervishes from Paris even if they’d given a good account of themselves, so dismal was the effort of Simone Inzaghi’s senior citizens that they found themselves on the wrong end of the biggest hiding ever meted out to any finalist in the competition’s history.
So much so, that the only person on the pitch who wasn’t wearing an Inter shirt to show them any mercy was the referee, who blew his final whistle bang on the 90-minute mark in order to end their humiliation at the earliest opportunity. “Tonight we were more tired than PSG,” sighed Inzaghi in the final’s aftermath. “We weren’t fresh on the second ball. We contested our league until last Friday, they won it with two months to spare. They have great quality, a great team. Technically they are stronger than us, we knew that, so we had to be more clever but we weren’t organised, and we deserved to lose. That’s the bottom line.”
While it was his clearly fatigued players who pulled off a passable imitation of rabbit-shaped training cones caught in very bright headlights on Saturday night, it is Inzaghi who has shipped most of the blame for the manner in which they had rings run around them. And though the Italian’s refusal to adapt his tactics or lineup to counter PSG’s almost psychotic approach to winning back possession is worthy of criticism, describing Inter’s performance as “a disgrace for Italian football”, as one writer in La Gazzetta dello Sport felt compelled to put it, might have been over egging the linguine carbonara just a tad.
Not everyone was as critical of Inter’s apologetic effort and upon their return to Milan Malpensa Airport, the club’s disappointed players received a boost in the form of a welcome committee comprised of one person. “I’m the only idiot here but they still deserve applause,” parped the solitary fan named Marco, according to the pink paper. Whether or not Inter’s exhausted and embarrassed players appreciated his effort is not known but at least for them, a gruelling season has finally reached its end. A long summer of rest and recuperation lies ahead, until their opening game of the Club World Cup kicks off in a little over a fortnight’s time.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
Everything came so quick. I was in year 10, playing League One. It was crazy. Very crazy” – Jordon Ibe, who is without a professional club, talks to Sam Dalling about overcoming tragedy, his turbulent time at Liverpool and how he wants to give his career one last push at the age of 29.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
Join Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and the rest of the Football Weekly pod squad as they chew over the Bigger Cup final and more.
FOOTBALL DAILY LETTERS
Now that the football season is over following Qatar’s win in the Bigger Cup, or to use Rio Ferdinand’s words on co-commentary, ‘a win for football’ (or in everyone else’s words, ‘thank goodness Ferdinand is leaving TNT’), it’s time to check in on the development of Major League Soccerball. Ah, yes, still the same comedy-fest but with added playing out from the back …” – Noble Francis.
Congratulations to PSG. They really threw the kitchen cinque at Inter” – Peter Oh.
There is no truth to the rumours that PSG intend to play blindfolded in their Uefa Super Cup match. Nope” – Krishna Moorthy.
Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … Peter Oh. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.
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