Super Mario's Arrival Would Aid Inter's Quest to be Best of the Rest
A year ago, Geoffrey Kondogbia walked out on the same hotel balcony and was greeted by a crowd of Inter fans just as Ronaldo was when he joined Inter in 1997. The French midfielder, a €31m signing from Monaco, cost the club more than O Fenômeno. In fact, he is the third most expensive buy in the club’s history behind Bobo Vieri and Hernán Crespo.
Next week the expectation is that Kondogbia will be nudged further down the list. The transfer record at Inter will likely fall or at least be matched. Talks are at an advanced stage with Sporting for João Mário, Portugal’s Euro 2016 winning No.10. This time last week all of Portugal’s sports dailies led with it on their front-pages, claiming an announcement was imminent.
The deal was actually supposed to be done by now. Instead it has stalled. On the one hand, Sporting are apparently asking for more money and insisting on a 10% sell-on clause. Inter on the other wish to structure the payment for Mário over four instalments instead of two. It will be a remarkable story if they do strike an agreement. In the end, the fee, including the cost of an initial loan and the performance-related add-ons, could finish close to €50m.
To put that into context only Gonzalo Higuaín’s recent move to Juventus and Crespo’s to Lazio from Parma in 2000 are bigger in Italian football history. It looked beyond Inter. Regarding FFP, the club is still beholden to the voluntary agreement that the old regime struck with UEFA. One of the ways they apparently thought they could get around it was for Inter’s new owners Suning to use their other club, Jiangsu, to buy Mário and then loan him back to them. However, there was one small problem with this cunning plan. The Chinese transfer window closed on July 15, not August 31 and Inter couldn’t get a deal done in time.
Bringing Mário to San Siro now looked impossible. The deal appeared dead in the water. Miraculously, it has been resurrected. Pivotal in all of this is the role of the agent Kia Joorabchian. Suning respects his opinion and his shadow looms large over Inter at the minute and not just because he represents Mário. His past with Mark Hughes and Carlos Tevez, the fact Roberto Mancini replaced one and fell out spectacularly with the other at Manchester City has inevitably been the subject of much speculation before and after the change of manager at Inter a fortnight ago.
It’s a power struggle Mancini appears to have lost. For one, he didn’t seem overly keen on the club signing Mário. After all, Inter already have Marcelo Brozovic who can play in midfield or out-wide on the right. Why tie up so much money in a player Mancini considered to be too similar? Curiously his exit just so happens to coincide with Inter going back in for Mário.
Inter’s offer is to initially take him on loan for €10m and then make the move permanent with another €35m, the payment of which will apparently be made in a series of manageable chunks spread out until 2018. Whether Inter need him or not is now something of a moot point. They have been seeking to sell Brozovic this summer. Something of a problem, however, is Juventus are the only ones serious enough at the moment to consider following up their interest with a bid and Inter understandably don’t wish to sell to one of their rivals.
Is Mário worth the money? Transfer fees are such these days that we ask this question of almost every player. Interisti are also understandably cautious about getting too carried away after seeing little return so far on the club’s investment in Kondogbia. But Mário isn’t called Joao Mágico at the Alvalade for nothing.
A graduate of the Sporting academy, which produced 10 of Portugal’s 23-man squad for the Euros, what has always stood out about Mário is his intelligence. He can play almost anywhere. “If they’d asked him to be a goalkeeper, he would have accepted without any problems,” Luis Gonçalves, assistant manager to Abel Xavier in Mozambique and one of Mário’s coaches at youth level, explained.
A centre-back when he was accepted into Sporting’s academy aged 11, Mário soon got moved into midfield. His reading of the game is what convinced them. “I always try to think about the game in a different way,” he told Expresso in the summer. “I lacked pace as a kid and I was a little chubby, so maybe I made up for it with intelligence and developed this side of my game more. It has helped me a lot.”
One of Mário’s role models when he was growing up, as for many aspiring footballers his age, was of course, the French maestro Zinedine Zidane. He was defined by Jorge Valdano as “an elephant with the brain of a ballerina.” Heavy on his feet, but agile of mind. A “False Slow”. The quickest of thinkers. They are the chess players, two or three moves ahead of their opponent. Mário can be categorised as such although obviously it goes without saying that few players in history have had the processing power of the great Zizou.
Smarts are what Inter need in midfield. The more the merrier. They could also do with someone with his character. Even as a kid Mário demanded maximum commitment and concentration from his teammates. He’d get angry if they were distracted. He showed maturity long before his time in the first team arrived. There’s a story about him as a 15-year-old stepping up when it looked like his youth team’s title challenge was fading. “Don’t worry coach,” Mário apparently said. “I know what to do. We’ll turn things around.” And turn things around they did. Sporting were crowned champions.
A finalist at the Euros in back-to-back summers, Mário was on the losing side with the Under-21s despite scoring his penalty in a shootout against Sweden, but avenged that defeat with the senior team by beating hosts France in Paris in July to end Portugal’s wait for a major international trophy and make history. He had his moments at the tournament. His crucial second half performance against Hungary immediately springs to mind.
On the whole, though, Mário didn’t reproduce the consistency he showed with Sporting where Jorge Jesus challenged him to adapt again and play on the right wing. Sporting got 16 assists out of Mário last season. Without the ball, he was effective as well, making 156 interceptions, 3.2 per 90 minutes. Quite how he’d fit in at Inter is fascinating. They have a great midfield-in-the-making, particularly if Kondogbia kicks on and comes good.
Inter are giving Frank de Boer options. If he wishes to play 4-3-3, then Kondogbia, Ever Banega and Mário has a nice balance to it. If instead he decides on 4-2-3-1 then Banega can perhaps play as a deep-lying playmaker beside Kondogbia who would find himself in his preferred role and system with Mário either wide-right or behind Mauro Icardi.
It’s hard to imagine Mário being deployed out wide, at least on a regular basis, what with Antonio Candreva and Ivan Perisic to choose from on the flanks. Interisti will hope he is more Figo than Quaresma in terms of impact. There’s a strong team being put together at Appiano Gentile. Inter should fancy their chances of getting back in the Champions League and even promise to be the best of the rest in Italy after Juventus.
A Super Mário would go a long way towards helping that happen.
How would Joao Mario fit in at Inter should he move to the Serie A side this summer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below
