By mid-December,
Inter hosted lowly Chievo in Serie A's 13th round.
The winter break came relatively early in Serie A that year. After this match, the league would pause for twenty days.
For several years, sports broadcasters had been urging Serie A to follow the Premier League's example and shorten or even abolish the winter break, all for the sake of profit.
After all, airing matches over Christmas could bring in a big jump in viewership.
For fans, watching football over the holidays was a delight, too.
But at a meeting of all the clubs, the proposal met fierce opposition from seventeen of the twenty teams!
Unlike in the Premier League, most Serie A club owners were locals.
They tended to be more traditional and conservative.
"Christmas is a holiday. If you make our players take the field, do you really think they'll be able to focus? They won't!"
"Serie A needs a winter break. Small clubs like Verona need time to buy and sell players and strengthen the squad. Otherwise, we're certain to be relegated in the second half of the season!"
"Our country has a deep-rooted football culture. Why should we learn from those Englishmen up north?"
"This is utterly absurd. Someone is trying to divide Italian football!"
In the end, the broadcasters got nowhere, and the proposal quietly died.
Of course, for players in Serie A, having a winter break was a wonderful thing~
Who wouldn't want to spend Christmas with family, their girlfriend, and friends?
You expect me to work and play football over the holidays?
To hell with football!
But Inter coach Mancini took the match before the winter break especially seriously.
He had watched recordings of all of Chievo's last ten matches well in advance. Together with his assistants Herrera and Chivu, as well as tactical analyst Caramosi, he drew up a game plan.
At the team's final training session on Saturday, Mancini also stressed to the players:
"Your holidays are almost here. I know a lot of you are already daydreaming about the beaches of the Iberian Peninsula, but whether this team can win three in a row is a psychological hurdle we have to overcome!"
Why did Mancini place so much importance on winning three consecutive matches?
It brought up the same old story about his predecessor, Mazzarri.
During Mazzarri's year and a half in charge of Inter,
the Nerazzurri had never managed to win three league matches in a row!
Now and then, after two consecutive wins, the fans would think Mazzarri was finally getting it together and Inter was about to hold its head high again.
But no matter who they faced in the third match—not even traditional powerhouses like Juventus and AC Milan, or relegation candidates like Catania and Chievo—the result was always a draw or a loss, usually a loss.
So, in their grief and outrage, some Inter fans from China turned their feelings into inspiration and wrote a catchy song about Mazzarri—
Mazzarri, Just Kicks It Any Which Way
The tune borrowed from the animated Journey to the West.
"Mazzarri, just kicks it any which way"
"Brings his back three to little Inter"
"Five Brothers and Big Obi"
"And Kuzmanovic, Norwich's man"
"Who cares about mighty Bayern or galactic Real Madrid"
"Who cares about the Red Devils or the all-powerful Barca"
"Who cares about long balls or counterattacks"
"None can stop this brilliant, any-which-way football"
"Leads Inter into the Europa League spots!"
"Mazzarri, just kicks it any which way"
"Kuzmanovic, Norwich's key man, has it rough"
"The attack can't score, and he's helpless"
"Mazzarri has to kick it any which way himself"
"Who cares if Icardi has his own bag of tricks"
"When the league wins won't come, just score a penalty to beat them"
"Who cares if long balls and crosses have their own magic"
"Obi bursts forward, Guarin skies one"
"Master and four disciples slay demons together, united in heart"
"Inter can't even beat the team in last place!"
Though it was just a joke, and the lyrics exaggerated plenty,
Inter in the years after their treble
had truly shattered many fans' faith in the future of this century-old Serie A giant, founded in 1908!
Mancini was different from Mazzarri. He was a title-winning coach who had claimed major league championships, a couple of levels above "Mazzarri."
He knew perfectly well that winning three league matches in a row was a psychological hurdle Inter had to clear!
Even though they were facing lowly Chievo at home, Mancini believed nobody could afford to let their guard down!
Even if the naturally proud Mancini thought they were all but certain to beat Chievo, that was only strategic confidence. Tactical preparation was still essential.
That was why Mancini made a surprising change to the starting lineup.
Guarin was back in the starting eleven!
When Mancini read out the starting lineup in front of everyone at the training ground,
the moment Guarin's name came up, both the Argentine BBQ Gang and the Italian Local Faction were stunned!
Hadn't the guy been frozen out?
Why was he starting?
Even Guarin himself hadn't seen it coming.
He'd already asked his agent in private to find him a new club.
Could it be that the coach trusted him again?
No one could guess what Mancini was thinking.
Now in his fifties, Mancini had grown even more mature than before.
If he had completely frozen Guarin out and driven him from the team just because Guarin had muttered a quiet challenge to his tactics in the dressing room, Mancini would never have become a renowned manager.
Mancini intended to use Guarin!
Guarin had plenty of flaws on the pitch.
He was impulsive and quick to lose his temper, and he led the team in yellow cards every season.
He had a fiery personality, complained about his teammates, and liked to go it alone.
But Guarin's strengths were just as striking!
He was the strongest player in Inter's squad. With him on the pitch, the midfield gained another level of physicality.
He ran harder than anyone else and was a tireless ball-winner.
His long-range shots often sailed into the stands, but there was no denying that he still scored more goals than any other midfielder on the team each season!
And Guarin had led Porto to the UEFA Europa League title in the 2010–11 season.
Inter had cleared out all the players who had helped them win the treble. Guarin was now one of the few champions left in the squad, a player who had been through the biggest matches.
If they let Guarin go, bringing in a similar player in the same position would cost at least €25 million in the winter transfer window!
Inter's finances were stretched too thin for that even to be considered.
Mancini handled Guarin with both carrot and stick: he'd slap him, then offer him a sweet.
As long as Guarin listened, there was still a place for him on the team.
After his pampered godson Balotelli had broken Mancini's heart,
the Italian coach had changed his approach to managing players.
He would never again open his heart to a particular player and give him unlimited affection.
In Mancini's view, I'm the coach. Everything I do is to keep my job.
I treat you well because you're useful to me, because you're worth having on the pitch.
Mancini had also keenly realized that if Guarin couldn't hold his place in the team, the South American Faction led by him would decline.
Ever since the clash at training sparked by Tang Long,
Mancini had been thinking about this.
The Argentine BBQ Gang and the Italian Local Faction seemed to be joining forces. Together, they could suppress the South American Faction.
If Mancini did nothing, the former groups would gradually grow in power and might even take control of the dressing room.
Argentines and Italians had strong ancestral ties!
Argentina had a population of forty million, and at least twenty million of them had Italian blood.
Names like Icardi and Zanetti
were steeped in Italian culture—they were descendants of Italian immigrants who had arrived a century earlier, after the First World War.
A united dressing room had many advantages.
But Mancini was wary of seeing the whole dressing room become completely united.
Divide and balance—that was a man-management skill a Serie A giant's coach had to master.
He'd seen far too many examples.
If a team kept performing well, it could cover up a lot of problems.
But once it hit a slump, the conflicts would erupt!
Players turning against their coach as a group and demanding the management replace him happened every year in the Top Five Leagues.
As a world-class coach, Mancini knew far more behind-the-scenes stories from his peers than the self-proclaimed experts in the media!
If every player in the dressing room pulled together into one tightly bound rope, that rope could lash their opponents—and their own coach, too.
If three ropes were loosely tangled together,
the only person who could wield that whip was Mancini himself.
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