Article 32 — Inter 00–03
The first season of the new Millenium got off to a stinker. Marcello Lippi received a stay of execution after Roberto Baggio rescued him with 2 goals in the Champions League playoff. Lippi didn’t keep his end of the deal though and was stunned and embarrassed by an early elimination in the qualifiers to the group stage of the Champions League by a Swedish team, Helsingborgs IF. Lippi’s fate was sealed when Inter opened their Serie A campaign with another shocking result, 1–2 defeat away to Reggina.
Lippi was sacked after that defeat to end an unsuccessful and disappointing reign of Inter. Italian legend and ex-Inter player, Marco Tardelli was appointed as manager instead. There were no big-money or particularly big-name signings this season.
The biggest signing we made was a surprise signing, that of Irishman Robbie Keane from Coventry City. The others we signed were Spaniard Francisco Farinos, Turkish star striker Hakan Sukur from Galatasaray who had won the UEFA Cup the previous season, Italians Bruno Cirillo, Christian Brocchi, Fabio Macellari, Marco Ballotta who was fresh from winning the Scudetto with Lazio, Slovak Vratislav Gresko and Brazil international Vampeta who was reunited with compatriot Ronaldo. In the winter, we signed Uruguayan Antonio Pacheco, Marco Ferrante on loan from Torino and Stephane Dalmat from Paris Saint-Germain.
There were some big names that left the club in the summer. Angelo Peruzzi lasted a season and was sold to Italian champions, Lazio, he was joined there by Francesco Colonnese, young Adrian Mutu and veteran Fabrizio Ferron were sold to Hellas Verona, Christian Panucci left on loan to join Monaco after being the latest player to fall out with Lippi, Paulo Sousa who was on loan at Parma in the second half of last season was sold to Panathinaikos in Greece, Roberto Baggio was sold to Brescia, Francesco Moriero joined Napoli, Salvatore Fresi joined Moriero in Naples on loan and Cyril Domoraud joined French club Bastia on loan.
In the winter, Ivan Zamorano ended his 7-year association to the club and joined Mexican club America on loan, Andrea Pirlo joined Brescia on loan, Vampeta and Robbie Keane had an unimpressive, poor and tough first half of the season. Vampeta was sold to Paris-Saint Germain in exchange for Dalmat in the winter while Keane joined Leeds United on loan.
Under Tardelli, Inter had an inconsistent season, finishing in 5th place which is better than I remembered it to be because this season had a very negative and dark result that would last forever in infamy, the 6–0 defeat in the Milan derby. We were also embarrassed and had our shorts pulled down by Parma in the Coppa Italia quarter-final. We were thrashed 6–1 in the first leg at the Ennio Tardini and drew 0–0 at San Siro in the return leg with the damage done. We lost the Suppercoppa Italiana at the start of the season to Lazio 3–4, ironically Robbie Keane and Vampeta scored their only goals for Inter in this match. Following our demotion to the UEFA Cup, we were knocked out in the Round of 16 by unfancied and eventual finalists, Alaves from Spain, 3–5 on aggregate after a 3–3 first-leg draw in Spain and 0–2 defeat at San Siro.
A horrific and chastening season, the worst in my memory ended and a new remarkable season started with the appointment of Argentine coach Hector Cuper from Valencia. Cuper had done well to guide Valencia to 2 consecutive Champions League final appearances.
As you would have known by now, every season players are signed are sold by the truckloads so I will try and summarise it as best as I can. We signed Francesco Toldo, Sergio Conceicao, Marco Materazzi, Turkish pair Emre Belozoglu and Okan Buruk, Alberto Fontana, Nelson Vivas, we resigned Cristiano Zanetti and Mohamed Kallon, a very young emerging talent from Brazil called Adriano, Grigoris Georgatos returned after a season on loan at Olympiacos, Nicola Ventola was resigned last season from Bologna before spending a season on loan at Atalanta, he was back for this season and finally, we signed Gonzalo Sorondo. Guly was signed from AC Milan in exchange with Christian Brocchi.
Leaving the club were Robbie Keane, Christian Panucci, Laurent Blanc, Vladimir Jugovic, Salvatore Fresi, Sebastian Frey, Benoit Cauet, Cyril Domoraud and Bruno Cirillo. Very sadly, Andrea Pirlo’s time at Inter was up without really showing his true potential and was sold to AC Milan, a decision that would come back to haunt us. Hakan Sukur left in the winter.
Ronaldo was to make a return to the team and was like a new signing after missing the whole of 2000–01. He had inherited the captain’s armband in the last days of Giuseppe Bergomi at the club. However, his injury problems saw Javier Zanetti deputise as team captain and was now the de-facto captain of the team.
After a dark and gloomy 2000–01 season, we got off to a great start in 2001–02 when people probably expected little from us. When we beat Milan in the Milan derby on the 3rd March 2002 and then salvage a late draw at home against Juventus a week after, it felt like we were destined to finally break our duck of 13 years and win the league this season. Along the way to the finishing line, we beat defending champions and one of the challengers for the league title this season, Roma 3–1 at San Siro. We could just smell the league title.
The pressure and fatigue started getting to the players. We suffered a surprise 1–2 defeat at home to Atalanta, needed two late goals from Ronaldo to beat Brescia a week after, before a late, late equaliser in Verona against the season’s surprise team, Chievo Verona cast some doubt on our mental strength and resilience in the final stretch.
We entered the final round of fixtures with a one-point lead over bitter rivals, Juventus and 2 points lead over Roma. We were playing against Lazio who had nothing to play for at Stadio Olimpico. Lazio fans made it surreal by openly supporting Inter against their team as they didn’t want their bitter neighbours, Roma to emerge as champions.
What happened next was the most heartbreaking and tragic end to a season as an Inter fan for me. We took the lead twice but Lazio came back twice to beat us 4–2 and we lost the league on the final day of the season because Juventus and Roma had both won. From first, we ended the season in third, totally undeserved because I really felt we were the best team that season and we were destined to win the Scudetto. Football showed it’s cruel side that day. The image of Ronaldo crying on the bench was mirrored by many long-suffering Inter fans all over the world on that infamous and tragic day of 5th May 2002.
We had a good run in Europe which included knocking Cuper’s former club, Valencia in the quarter-final. Kallon and Ventola had a good European season finishing it as our top 2 goalscorers in Europe. We were knocked out in the semi-final by the eventual champions, Dutch team Feyenoord 3–2 on aggregate.
In the Coppa Italia, we knocked out by Udinese in the Round of 16.
Hector Cuper kept his job for next season but that meant the loss of Ronaldo who went on to win the World Cup in the summer with Brazil. This was the third time in the player vs coach battle Moratti has faced that the player has lost after Roberto Carlos vs Roy Hodgson, Roberto Baggio vs Marcello Lippi and Ronaldo vs Hector Cuper.
Ronaldo was replaced by a big-money move for Hernan Crespo. We made a rare big-money move for a defender as well this summer when we signed Italian international Fabio Cannavaro. Joining him from Parma was Matias Almeyda, Daniele Adani and Domenico Morfeo arrived on a free transfer from Fiorentina and we had also signed Bernardo Corradi who had done well for Chievo the previous season. Umit Davala was signed in exchange with Dario Simic from AC Milan but was then loaned out to Galatasary immediately after. Gabriel Batistuta joined on loan from Roma in the winter but was looking like a pale shadow of his former self.
Clarence Seedorf was also exchanged for Francesco Coco. This was another transfer that will come back to haunt us. Seedorf, unfortunately, couldn’t display his best form for us and would go on to do fantastically for our neighbours, AC Milan like Pirlo did the previous summer. Coco was tipped to be the next Maldini but didn’t live up to expectations.
Adriano was another Brazilian striker out of the door as he joined Parma, Corradi who was signed to be an understudy for Vieri was sold to Lazio in exchange for Crespo, Goergatos went back to Greece to join AEK Athens, Gresko who was seen as the villain in our horrendous collapse against Lazio last season was sold to Parma and Francisco Farinos left in the winter to join Villareal on loan.
This was the first season where Vieri finally found a stable strike partner in Crespo and they both dovetailed well with each other. We had a good run in the league this season but not as close as we were last season. There was a crazy match that stood out in this season when Inter got a late, late equaliser against Juventus at San Siro. It was unclear who got the final touch of the ball between Toldo and Vieri in a melee in the box but the goal is officially credited as Vieri’s. We didn’t deserve to lose this match so a draw was the least we deserved from this game.
There were two other crazy games this season as well coincidentally both against Roman teams. The first was coming from 0–3 to draw 3–3 against Lazio at Stadio Olimpico on the 7th December 2002 with Emre scoring two stunning goals to get us the draw and the second one was losing a 3–1 lead against Roma at San Siro on the 6th April 2003.
We finished the season in a credible 2nd position, 7 points behind Juventus. Crespo missed 4 months of the season from early 2003 which coincided with the arrival of Batistuta. When Crespo recovered, Vieri got injured instead.
We had a great run in the Champions League this season. We beat Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon 2–0 on aggregate to qualify for the group stages. We finished the first group stage top of the group. There were some memorable games in this group stage, 3–3 away to Lyon, 1–0 and 2–1 against Ajax Amsterdam home and away.
In the second group stage, we finished second behind Barcelona. A 4–1 win away to Newcastle United, home and away wins over Bayer Leverkusen were the stand-out results.
In the quarter-final, we had a couple of incredible games against Valencia especially the second leg at the Mestalla where we scored an early away goal before withstanding a barrage of pressure on our goal, camped in our half. Toldo was immense that day, repelling almost everything away, producing a superhero performance. We advanced due to the away goals rule despite losing the 2nd leg, 1–2.
Inter progressed from the quarter-final to play in the first-ever Milan derby to be played in the Champions League. Milan had the better of both encounters in the league that season so this was not going to be easy. Both games ended in a draw but Milan progressed to the final due to the away goals rule. We had sacrificed giving a better shot of challenging for the league title by focusing on the Champions League but were left empty-handed again.
We were knocked out of the Coppa Italia 3–1 on aggregate by a team that was no longer in Serie A but still haunted us, Bari. This season would also be notable for the rare promotion from the youth ranks of a couple of players, Obafemi Martins and Giovanni Pasquale who both did well. Martins was an outstanding revelation up-front.
The 2000s started horribly. It was a nightmare start, the worst season in my memory as a fan followed by the most tragic, heart-wrenching one. I still believe to this day that was a big opportunity wasted, we looked destined to finally end our long wait for the Scudetto but still contrived to screw things up royally. It would have been very sweet had we won the league in that season when Serie A was still in its peak against strong rivals. The following season with the trauma of 2001–02 still fresh, we actually did very well to finish 2nd but didn’t make a very good fight of it in the end, preferring instead to favour progression to the Champions League final and possible glory on Europe’s biggest stage. There was nothing to separate us and Milan over 2 legs of the Champions League semi-final but we got knocked out instead due to the away goals rule. The difference was very minute and we can count ourselves unlucky to fall foul of that difference. However, you could also argue that luck was on our side in the quarter-final when we progressed on the away goals rule.
There is still lots more to come in the story of the 2000s. We would finally taste some tangible successes in this era in the upcoming years. Things were about to change for us and Italian football as a whole.
