Former Lazio midfielder Marco Parolo looked back at Inter coach Simone Inzaghi’s time in Rome ahead of tonight’s match.
Speaking in an interview with Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport earlier today, the DAZN pundit first remembered the 45-year-old Italian coach’s beginnings with the Biancocelesti.
It was enough to look at his face to understand that those seven games were a matter of life and death. He lives by instinct, but that day it was written on his face: ‘I will be the coach of Lazio’.
I remember the first match in Palermo, 3-0 for us. He was so happy that I can’t explain it. Then Fiorentina in the last round, an irrelevant match, we lost 4-2, it was Klose’s farewell.
Some of us already had our minds on the European Championship. He felt like it was a World Cup and was disappointed. That’s to show you what kind of guy he is.
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The former Lazio midfielder summarised Inzaghi in only one word.
Instinct. You can see it in his celebrations or reactions. Against Juve, he’s the one who moved Marusic to let him beat the throw-in. From there Caicedo’s goal.
The best example is Kiev, de Vrij scores the 2-0, he slips on the athletics track and then gets back up as if nothing had happened.
Inzaghi is this. He knows how to understand the players’ moments.
The DAZN pundit touched on the way that the Inter coach forms relationships with his players.
He tries to get along with everyone, but every now and then his veins get ‘blocked’. See Immobile, when he got angry during the substitution. And they’ve always had a great relationship.
Another example is Patric at Sevilla. He took the change badly and chased him into the locker room. The great thing is that the game had just started.
Parolo then discussed his personal relationship with the 45-year-old Italian coach.
In the locker room he always knew who to lean on, and one of those was me. We confronted each other often, I was one of the ‘senators’. We had an open relationship and mutual esteem.
I put my ego aside, also because of my age, so much so that I always showed him respect even when I wasn’t playing!
I even played as a defender for him, both in the middle and on the right. In the summer I met him at the beach and we played footvolley.
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He spoke about if Inzaghi’s decision to change from Lazio to Inter earlier this year was a good decision.
For me, yes. The relationship with the players had become so total that he now knew everything about them. How it would go, how they would play, how they would score.
What more could you want? By now the cycle in Rome was over. Such an instinctive coach needed a new shock.
Finally, Parolo commented on the emotional return of Inzaghi to the Stadio Olimpico this evening.
He deserves applause for what he has done. And if some booing comes then it will be for too much love.
The fans loved him so much that perhaps they were disappointed by his farewell, but they won’t be hateful whistles. In my opinion, a large part of the stadium will pay him the proper tribute.
Inzaghi has had a very strong start to his time in Milan; Inter currently sit third in the Serie A table after the opening seven games, with a record of five wins and two draws.
