It is a deal that is a big as Ronaldo and Kaka both going to Real Madrid. Champions League holders Barcelona sent Samual Eto’o over €43 million plus the services of Aliaksandr Hleb to Inter Milan for forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
With Eto valued at 20million euros, plus the news that Inter will have the chance to buy Hleb for an initial 10million euros once his season-long loan spell is concluded, that values this trade at around €73 million.
This is a huge deal for both teams. For Barcelona they run the risk of upsetting the chemistry on a squad that won everything last year. But they have seen bitter rivals Real Madrid grab the headlines this summer with their spectacular signings and they had to do something to grab back the spotlight.
What I cannot understand is why Barcelona did this deal. The two forwards are about the same age, but Eto’o had a phenomenal goal return for Barca, scoring 108 times in 145 games. In all competitions last season he notched 39 in 49 matches.
Ibrahimovic is also coming off the back of a prolific campaign, with 28 in 38 games domestically, which won him Serie A’s Footballer or the Year award.
The big knock against Ibrahimovic is that he doesn’t score on the big stage. Eto’o has a much better goal scoring ratio in both Champions League and International football than Ibra.
For Inter, summer signing’s Eto’o and Militio both bring a lot of pace to Inter’s attack and this could be useful in the Champions League where Mourinho will be able to reply on his favorite tactic of counter-attack football.
Ow, I almost forgot to mention that by sending Obi off yesterday, statistically Rocchi has sent off 7 Inter players over 16 matches that Inter played under Rocchi’s .
First half, it’s all about referee decisions. He got it wrong by producing yellow card for Obi that clearly everyone in the stadium and tv can see he outmanuevered Lavezzi and taken the ball CLEANLY! But that’s not the case for our “first half person of the night”, he saw the other way. I don’t know from where he got the idea that clean tackle deserved a yellow card. It’s a big head shaking decision for everyone who watched. And then another incident happen and what other people considered as business as usual, yet again the “first half super star” with full confidence declared that Obi foul Maggio inside the box when actually Maggio had a little touch by Obi outside the box made him loosing balance! (Look at picture above or watched youtube). Is he blind or something? The linesman not waving the flag surely there is no foul committed. But he decided differently. Sending off Obi and give Napoli the penalty was the ultimate disgusting show of the night! And the penalty itself should have retaken because as the penalty in motion lots of player move when they should stand still until the ball is kicked! The Ref should be awarded a red card by his own!
But second half is another story. Ten men down and a goal behind, the boys should done better by not giving out the ball easily and try to take control of the ball possession for remaining match. And as we can see, the boys even lose focus on tightening defence while counter attack or losing ball to the opponent occurs. It’s a big homework for Ranieri to sort ut this problem. Probably by training the boys on the same situation last night.
In the end it’s another bad story that we’re likely to forget and hope Inter would learn to react quickly in a proper way just in case if it happen again in the future.
FORZA NERRAZURI!!