Inter played Fiorentina at home in what was a game that was won based solely on passion and what the Italians call ‘Grinta’. Spalletti opted to go with his standard backline of Asamoah-Skriniar-De Vrij- and the unlikely hero of the game Danilo D’Ambrosio. In front of them saw Brozovic and Vecino with Candreva and Perisic on the outsides, Radja in the 10 role and Icardi leading the team at the top. Today what really hindered Inter’s ability to dictate the pace of the game and control it’s movements instead of playing with their backs against the wall like they seemed to do at times.
The two bodies in the holding midfielder role have very different and very specific roles which are designed and suited to each individual player. At a second glance of this game, it’s very easy to notice that at the times where Inter were dominating the game it was Brozovic who played as the strong holding midfielder and Vecino was given the license to roam up the field and venture into the box. When they unconsciously reversed the roles and Brozovic roamed just slightly to high, Fiorentina did very well to hyper commit onto Vecino causing him to turnover in a dangerous midfield position. With the introduction of Keita Balde, we saw Radja drop next to Brozovic which is evidently an extremely powerful duo in the holding midfield.
The ideal line up in that midfield would be Brozovic and Nainggolan and Lautaro Martinez in the ten role when he’s healthy. This would allow for more natural movement and creativity instead forcing Brozovic to really anchor down the midfield. What this fluidity allows is for either holding midfielder to carry box to box instead of forcing situations like today where they knew if Brozovic didn’t have the ball that Vecino would carry it and they’d converge on his paths instead of on him. It wasn’t necessarily the fact that Vecino played bad but it was that the Fiorentina coach completely understood how Inter’s midfield wanted to move the ball forward.
Finally, Icardi, the man is a breed of player on his own. Icardi looks like he’s never committed to anything other than when he’s scoring goals. He never looks satisfied and/or happy with his team but that’s only because of the fact that he expects so much from a team with so much potential. Today he was able to keep calm and open his account by converting on the penalty spot but more importantly his work on the second goal. He got in front of Fiorentina’s back line and showed himself to D’Ambrosio they were able to convert for the go ahead goal.
It’s inevitable that Icardi as well as Inter is off to a very challenging beginning but with the passion of the club led by the high standards of the captain will surely bring the club results as the world saw today. All in all, the manner in which the three points were achieved is irrelevant; the only thing that matters is that with the “Gritta” of Inter, the season seems to have taken a turn for the better, but for now, a win is a win.