Three days after Inter’s 107th birthday the club travels to Wolfsburg to face one of Europe’s most in form teams in the Europa League. Many words have been said about the draw and there’s no doubt that Wolfsburg was one of the toughest opponents Inter could get if not THE toughest. With players like Luiz Gustavo, Kevin De Bruyne, Bas Dost and Andrè Schurrle, the Germans have risen from the problems they had a couple of season ago to become a top team in the Bundesliga again. The team is second only to Bayern in the Bundesliga on 50 points and are 9 points before third placed Mönchengladbach. Earlier this year they destroyed Bayern after a perfect 4-0 game where all their key players delivered.
Seeing how German teams like Schalke put up a great performance with Real Madrid and Bayern destroyed Shaktar in the Champions League whilst Dortmund are still in the race to make it to the Champions League quarter final, it’s not hard to understand why Wolfsburg are the favorites to advance from the two legs. Though there is one thing that gets on my nerves and that’s how the Germans celebrated drawing Inter in the tournament. On the pressconference before the game Wolfsburg coach Hecking says:
“Anyone who makes the mistake of underestimating Inter has already lost.”
And here is my problem . Teams like Cesena are underestimated. Bottom teams in the league cups or league games are under-estimated. But in the Europa League, at this stage, there is no such thing as talking about underestimation and especially not with a team like Inter that has a great history and a tradition of winning titles in difference from Wolfsburg. Whilst I will surely give Wolfsburg that they are a great team in better shape than Inter at the moment, and that Inter should learn from what Wolfsburg has built, I as supporter will never accept my club to be talked about as a bottom team.
Unfortunately, I’m not the football player I wished to be and I won’t be able to go down that field tonight defending Inter’s shirt, history and colors. Inter could very well lose this game and not make it through to the next round, but I have one wish and one demand on the Inter players and that is that they will do their best to honor this shirt, the black and blue colors and all the history it contains.
Inter is not a club you underestimate, Inter is a club you respect and tonight I’d love to see eleven lions defending our tradition and our history in the fortress of the Germans. Forza Inter!!!
