Inter Milan had won their last two league matches.
That had lifted them from ninth to eighth in the standings.
Back in Mazzarri's day, a two-game winning streak was actually a bad omen.
It was a sad thing to say!
During Mazzarri's year and a half in charge of Inter Milan,
the team had never managed to win three league games in a row!
After two straight wins, the third match was bound to go badly. Whether they faced a top team or one fighting relegation, they either drew or lost.
Even Mancini, sitting in the head coach's office, felt a little worried.
The Indonesian owner, Thohir, had brought Mancini back with one task: lead Inter Milan back to the UEFA Champions League!
Although Thohir believed the chances of Inter qualifying for the Champions League this season were next to none,
"Mr. Mancini, given that the Inter Milan you're about to take over are ninth in the league, and to give you a better chance of meeting your goal of qualifying for next season's Champions League, I suggest you focus on the UEFA Europa League."
Mancini knew what the owner meant.
In recent years, Italian teams had been struggling in European competition.
As a result, Serie A's Champions League berths had dropped from four to three.
The same number as Ligue 1!
Qualifying for the Champions League through the league would be extremely difficult with the squad they had.
But Mancini gritted his teeth and replied to Thohir:
"Boss, please trust me. I don't think finishing in the top three is impossible. We've only played nine matches, and the team has plenty of room to improve."
Mancini had his reasons for saying this!
Looking back over his coaching career, Mancio had never been particularly good at leading teams in continental cup competitions.
During his first stint at Inter Milan, the team had repeatedly fallen at the round of 16 in the Champions League.
His departure in 2008 had also been tied to their Champions League results.
Inter Milan had just won the league the previous season with a club-record 97 points, yet they failed to score across two legs and lost 3–0 to Liverpool.
So disheartened was Mancini that he even announced his resignation at the post-match press conference.
Even after moving to the wealthier Manchester City, where he was given extensive authority to build the team,
Mancini's European campaigns were still dismal!
In the 2010–11 season, they lost to Dynamo Kyiv and went out in the UEFA Europa League round of 16.
In the 2011–12 season, they finished third in their Champions League group, dropped into the UEFA Europa League, then lost to Sporting CP and went out in the round of 16 again.
In the 2012–13 season, Manchester City returned as the reigning Premier League champions, and the whole world had high hopes for them.
But who could have expected them to finish bottom of their group and go home without winning a single match, after three draws and three losses!
This time, they hadn't even qualified for the UEFA Europa League.
So when Mancini returned to Inter Milan in November 2014 and the owner explained his plan to win the UEFA Europa League and qualify for the Champions League,
Mancini's heart sank at the idea of this "backdoor route" to the Champions League—
It was a no-go!
Compared with European competition, the league was the real forte of this renowned Italian manager.
That was why Mancini had spent the past few days whispering in the ear of the club's sporting director, Ausilio, urging him to increase the budget in the winter transfer window and strengthen the squad.
"Ausilio, you know Serie A inside out. Tell me, do you really believe this current Inter Milan squad can finish in the top three?"
"I don't, but the boss won't give us any money. I'm just an employee. Asking me won't help."
"I promised the boss we'd qualify for the Champions League. Can you really stand by and watch me die?"
"I'll see what I can do. We could loan players with an option to buy, then try to send them back at the end of the season. Otherwise, we'll have to sell a key player first and buy replacements afterward. You know how it works."
"..."
Mancini was tearing his hair out.
The winter transfer window was about to open, but no matter how much he and Ausilio pushed, all they'd managed to scrape together was a budget of ten million euros.
Back in the day, that wouldn't even have covered Ibrahimovic's net salary at Inter Milan for a year.
After returning from the Turkish Super Lig to a top European league, Mancini was desperate to prove himself.
He had even liquidated all his assets in Turkey and spent a fortune on a three-million-euro detached house by Lake Como in Milan, preparing to stay in the city for good.
How to lead Inter Milan back to the Champions League had become a mountain weighing on the renowned Italian manager's heart.
Since finding quality players in the transfer market was so difficult,
Mancini had no choice but to consider looking within the club.
Mancini wasn't a coach who liked using young players. Aside from Balotelli, he had mostly relied on experienced professionals throughout his career.
Bonazzoli, from the youth team, was the first youngster he'd been forced to promote.
The results had been disappointing. The kid had the physique, but his forward skills were crude—Serie B level at best.
Tang Long's arrival had been an accident.
Mancini was increasingly noticing a peculiar quality in Tang Long.
It was hard to explain.
It mainly showed in how Tang always seemed to create goals with sudden flashes of inspiration!
If Tang Long's two dangerous passes against Genoa had been a fluke,
then Mancini had begun to see the truth of it in their away match against Roma the day before yesterday.
A player couldn't just keep getting lucky!
Especially when Tang Long received Hernanes's pass and suddenly let it run through to Icardi, helping the latter score their fourth goal.
"How did he know where Icardi would run?"
At that moment, Mancini sat before his computer, watching the replay on the screen over and over.
Click, click.
He kept clicking the pause button with his mouse,
trying to study the movement of Tang Long's head frame by frame.
But what surprised Mancini was that Tang Long's gaze never once met Icardi's!
"Instinct. It's a kind of instinctive awareness of the whole field. It's hard to explain. Maybe that's just talent!"
Mancini took out his phone
and opened the text message Sneijder had sent him.
Sneijder had sent it after Inter Milan's home match against Genoa in Serie A's eleventh round.
-[Dear Mr. Mancini, I hope you don't mind me reaching out. After watching the match, I wanted to comment on Tang's performance, as someone who once played for Inter Milan.]
-[Tang's two passes—sorry, I want to call them passes, not shots. I know a lot of people would think otherwise, but I'm certain he was passing!]
-[Tang's vision and his precise reading of the situation have captivated me! His potential far exceeds that of the other Inter Milan players. I believe that under your guidance, he can become a world-class star!]
Mancini had read the message more than ten times.
For a while, he'd suspected the number was fake, and that some fan was playing a joke on him!
But after checking with club officials, he confirmed it really was Sneijder's number.
"He makes it sound incredible. Is Tang really that good? If he is, why didn't the youth team director mention him when I first arrived at Inter Milan?"
It wasn't until after the Roma match, when he saw a replay of Tang Long's deft dummy on Bernardi's phone at the post-match press conference,
that Mancini was stunned!
Tang hadn't touched the ball at all with that dummy.
The assist for the goal had even been credited to Hernanes.
But that astonishing dummy had created an entirely new opportunity!
It had completely opened up the play.
It was the imagination of a true master!
"Just as you'd expect from Sneijder. He has an even better eye for talent than I do..." Mancini smiled happily.
Knock, knock, knock!
Assistant coach Herrera came in.
"Boss, the report you asked for on Tang Long is ready."
Inter Milan had a standard procedure for this.
Whenever a player was promoted from the youth team to the first team, the first-team coaching and medical staff evaluated his performance in training over the previous ten days or so and prepared a comprehensive assessment for the head coach.
Mancini opened it.
The fitness coach had written two pages.
[Tang's physical attributes are extremely average. His muscular explosiveness and endurance are both insufficient for the demands of ninety minutes of Serie A competition. The data shows...]
Mancini flipped to the next page, which contained the technical coach's assessment.
[Tang's fundamentals are noticeably behind those of his teammates. Aside from his accuracy on short passes, his long passing, shooting, first touch, and heading are all rather rough, falling short of the standard for Serie A players. Furthermore...]
Next came the set-piece coach's assessment.
[Our evaluation found that Tang judges the ball's landing point fairly accurately during set-piece attacks and defense. However, his physical limitations make it difficult for him to reach the first ball...]
The medical officer's assessment was even more direct.
[Our analysis suggests that Tang has a long-standing habit of staying up late. His dark circles are quite severe. During our conversation, the player said he watches match footage at night; this claim is questionable. We suspect that he frequently goes to nightclubs, which will seriously affect his physical development...]
Herrera watched Mancini frown and ventured:
"Boss, after the coaching staff's overall assessment, even at his absolute best, Tang's ability is only good enough for the Serie B bench!"
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