AC Milan vs. Inter: Which City Rival Will Return to Contention First?

The truth is simple. Without Inter or AC Milan at the top of their games, the whole of Italian football suffers.

The two Milanese clubs began to slump as Juventus took over Serie A. Inter failed to make the Champions League, and then a year later Milan slipped out of Europe altogether. A combination of poor management, poor finances and poor players resulted in—you guessed it—a poor product on the field.

But both teams are now armed with two new coaches. Filippo Inzaghi started his first year leading “the team that I love,” he told La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Goal.com), and Roberto Mancini recently returned to a club he also knows well. The difference is experience: Inzaghi is still learning as he goes, while Mancini has already managed once before to build up Inter to great heights.

Mancini put together the spine of that great Inter side that eventually won everything under Mourinho. When Mancini first arrived at Inter in 2004, he said, “they played very bad football and we changed this.

“[Mourinho] took a team that, like Manchester City, I had built, a team that had a strong mentality.”

Antonio Calanni/Associated Press

Of course, the Portuguese brought in several of his own players—Samuel Eto’o, Wesley Sneijder, Lucio—but it was the Italian who integrated important players like Dejan Stankovic, Walter Samuel, Esteban Cambiasso, Maicon, Cristian Chivu and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (later included in the deal for Eto’o).

Now, Mancini has to do it all over again. The team was mostly restricted to a silly formation (three-man defence) under Walter Mazzarri, who experimented way too much. 

Of course, Mazzarri did do some good things. Andrea Ranocchia has improved in the middle of defence, and he is starting to play regularly for Italy; Mauro Icardi is finally scoring; and Mateo Kovacic is still raw, but he can set up plays and make assists and eventually become an important component of that midfield.

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Mancini:"Kovacic can struggle in some games, it's normal he's young. But he has the qualities to be a champion"

— David Amoyal (@DavidAmoyal) November 15, 2014"

For Inzaghi, the story is a little bit different. He has tried to create a positive environment and team spirit. That was evident in the early games. The players celebrated every goal with their coach. But that harmony has vanished on the field. 

Diego Lopez, Keisuke Honda, Nigel de Jong and Adil Rami are Inzaghi's most important players, but those his team signed in the summer—Jeremy Menez, Alex, Fernando Torres—are not young or consistent. And even their young players are struggling: Stephan El Shaarawy and Mattia De Sciglio both played for Italy this past week, but neither is playing with particular confidence.

Milan are still missing a lot of key parts, in midfield and defence, while Inter now have a coach with a pedigree and a team with workable pieces.

Playing in Europe is a dream for Milan next season. Inter already are. They have a head start, and they are that much closer to contention.