Roberto Mancini – Where do you stand?

By: Rob | May 28th, 2008

Although uncertainty is still king, it seems that Roberto Mancini has been let go by Inter Milan (and by let go, I mean fired) soon to be replaced by Jose Mourinho. Quite a brave move considering that Mancini has just delivered his third Scudetto in a row (an achievement which no other Inter manager has ever managed). Things have never been quite normal under Mancini though.

When people look back in the history books, what they will see is that Inter Milan won three sucsessive Scudetto’s under Roberto Mancini. There will be some who will see this as evidence enough of his greatness, but there are a number of reasons why Mancini – who failed to get the respect he properly deserved as a player in a generation of great Italian number 10’s (particuarly Roberto Baggio).

The first Scudetto that Mancini delivered was via the courts after the hellstorm that was the Calciopoli scandal that rocked Serie A. So you could argue that he didn’t win that one by right. You could also argue that the punishment against Milan and Juve was fair and that he did win it by right, but what can’t be denied is that its a debatable one.

His second Scudetto was won at a canter, with only Roma following due to the damage done by the aforementioned scandal. Juve were stuck in Serie B, Milan down heavily on points, Inter picked up a fair few top players from the scandal hit clubs, and had a much stronger squad than anyone else. There’s another argument against Mancini – anyone could have won the league that year.

This year they started incredibly well, so well that they could practically stop playing after they exited the Champions League, and they still, just about clung on to the Scudetto. So this years argument against his achievements is that he should have won it by a far greater margin. Roma fans will feel unlucky – had it not been for a late goal in the Inter-Roma league match and a awful referring moment sending off Philou Mexés then the title might well have been Roma’s.

This is a Champions League blog – and its only fair that I judge him on his Champions League as well. I think its fair to say that Inter have under-achieved in the Champions League. I thought they stood a chance this season actually, but they reacted badly to a wrong red card against Liverpool and promptly went to pieces.

Inter should have bounced back from the Liverpool loss, but they didn’t. Mancini tried to resign, in a moment that probably sealed his fate, but quickly either changed his mind or was talked out of it, either way it seemed to upset the squad, Figo in particular started to refuse to play. Inter went on a spectacular losing streak (they were unbeaten before the Liverpool game) and self-destruced sensationally. The title went to the last day eventually, which Inter won.

His tactics have been critisised (the Roma game this season for example, he had to play with ten men because he made all 3 subs inside 70 minutes and then player went down injured) his man-management doesn’t look great and his impulsive-descions (a problem when he was a player as well) scorned. Some would say its time to move on – but next season, with Milan concentrating fully on the Scudetto, Roma looking stronger than before, Juve looking to get back to title winning ways, and even Fiorentina will be strong following the Champions League winfall, next season would have been a fantastic test of him. Looks like we won’t get that. Maybe he can prove himself elsewhere, or maybe we’ll forever be wondering.