The youth revolution at Inter MIlan continues with the news that the club has signed Hugo Campagnaro and Mauro Icardi.
According to Gazzetta, Mauro Icardi has agreed to move from Sampdoria to Inter. The 19-year-old Argentinian striker is the best young talent in Serie A and his signing is a major coup for the Nerazzurri.
While the final transfer payments are being worked out, the deal is reportedly worth between €15-16,000,000 plus add-ons. The only question is whether the deal is all cash, or whether an Inter player (Silvestre) will be heading to Sampdoria in part-exchange.
Yet another product of the Barcelona academy, Icardi scored 38 goals in two years with the Barca youth team. But he is not the classic Barca striker. He is more of a classic centre-forward who models his game after Argentina legend Gabriel Batistuta, more than Lionel Messi.
So Icardi moves to Samp in January 2011, as has been a rising star in Serie A since making his first team debut in May 2012.
Icardi will be joining young Croatian star Mateo Kovacic who joined Inter in the January transfer window for €11m from Dynamo Zagreb. The 18-year-old Kovacic is projected to one of the future stars of European future.
Inter’s youth movement makes sense for Inter on a couple of levels. One is that it is cheaper (transfer fee and wages) to sign players like Icardi and Kovacic) than it is to sign a Mario Balotelli or Edwin Dzeko. Plus with Financial Fair Play coming on board, having young talent with a lot of upside, that you can sell for a big profit is more important than ever.
Second, Inter’s manager Andrea Stramaccioni is unexperienced. A year ago he was managing their youth team. So Strama is naturally more comfortable working with, and relating too teenagers, than he is with older, veteran players. SO building a young team, sets Strama up for success.
