Simone Inzaghi, 49, seemed to be in the clouds last Monday (30). Seconds before the finishing whistle of referee Jesús Valenzuela, he was hung at one of the members of his coaching staff at the World Stadium camp in Orlando, celebrating Al Hilal’s victory over Manchester City in the round of 16 of the Club World Cup.
“We had to climb Everest without oxygen and got it,” said the Italian, responsible for imposing Pep Guardiola his first defeat in 12 games on worlds.
Hired by Al Hilal after the Champions League runner-up with Inter Milan-the second in the last three seasons-he now crosses Fluminense’s path in a match that decides the first semifinalist of the tournament, at 16h (Brasília) this Friday (4), also in Orlando.
The tournament in the United States has been important to the coach, who has been growing since the first time took over a main team for nine years.
In 2016, after six seasons working on Lazio’s base categories, the former striker had practically played the towel on the plan to take the professional team-which had a striking passage as a player. The drop of water was the announcement of Argentine Marcelo Bielsa to replace Stefano Pioli.
Simone was inclined to accept an offer from the Second Division Salernitana, but everything changed with the sudden withdrawal of Bielsa two days after the agreement, on the grounds of not having received promised reinforcements.
“We chose Inzaghi, which is not a second option. We saw in it the ideal coach to follow with our projects,” said then President Claudio Lolito.
Inzaghi, in fact, needed a short time to prove not merely improvisation. In the first season, he ended a uncomfortable four -year victory fast against Archirrival Roma, ranked the team to the Europa League with a fifth place in Italian and was deputy in the Italy Cup.
At Lazio, the coach created a game pattern with the 3-5-2 scheme, featuring technical defenders, offensive wings, more mobile players on the front and a fixed center forward. He left the club with the Italian Cup titles (2019) and the Italian Super Cup (2017 and 2019) and classified for Champions.
He then departed in 2021 to Inter, also praised by the tactical pattern. Championship runner-up in 2023-Common loss to Guardiola’s Manchester City-had to reinvent the team after the departure of five holders: Dzeko, Lukaku, Onana, škriniar and Brozovic.
“In the career of coach, there is no point of arrival, one can always improve,” he wrote, in the thesis presented to obtain the license by Figc (Italian Football Federation), pointing as the greatest example the current coach of the Brazilian team, Carlo Ancelotti.
In the text, he mentions that “a coach who believes in his work and wants to succeed needs to know the importance of the group’s strength.” It also recalls the influence of his first coach, Italian Giuseppe Materazzi, with whom he worked at Piacenza, and the lessons of Italian Roberto Mancini: “With Mancini I learned how to stimulate the different personalities of a group of players as the right way.”
Inzaghi also demonstrates a special appreciation for the Swedish Sven-Göran Eriksson, who recently died from pancreas cancer: “Arguably number one, by the way he dealt with a cast names full of Lazio.”
As an athlete, despite the 90 goals scored in the elite of Italian football, Simone has always been in the shadow of the older brother, Filippo, top scorer and multi -champion for higher teams such as Juventus and Milan.
As a coach, it summarizes four phases the assembly of a winning group: training, rebellion, standardization and performance.
In the first stage, there is an understanding of the importance of first finding a role for each of the group’s players. The second occurs when internal disputes arise for the confirmation of roles and protagonists. “At this stage, the coach must communicate with athletes objectively and openly.”
Standardization is the moment when the cast of players is established “lives a unit as a team.” And performance is seen when the group can achieve the goal.
Inter was 90 minutes from the main objective in the last Champions, but was run over in the final, won 5-0 by Paris Saint-Germain. Inzaghi then accepted a very high Al Hilal offer and embarked on the United States for the World Cup in a new attempt to surprise.
