When Inter coach Luciano Spalletti travels to the San Siro on Sunday, he will come up against a striker who he had tried to bring to Inter when he was coach in the former of Edin Dzeko.
This is highlighted in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Corriere dello Sport, who note that the current Partenopei boss was not the only Nerazzurri coach to try and sign the Bosnian before he finally joined this summer.
Roberto Mancini had been the first Inter coach to seriously target Dzeko, as he had aimed to reunite with the striker with whom he had worked successfully at Manchester City at a time when then-Inter striker Mauro Icardi looked like he could leave due to difficulties in contract negotiations.
Spalletti also aimed to sign the Bosnian, who he had also worked with successfully when the pair were together at Roma and the striker finished Capocannoniere in Serie A, but was once again unable to.
When Antonio Conte came in as Spalletti’s replacement, the former Juventus, Italy, and Chelsea boss made no secret of his admiration of Dzeko, trying to sign the striker in his first summer in charge.
Conte had thought that he was close to the Bosnian’s signature but in the end Dzeko renewed with the Giallorossi instead, while a proposed swap deal between Dzeko and Alexis Sanchez in January of this year also failed to materialize.
Dzeko never really fell off the Nerazzurri’s radar even after all of these coaches’ failed pursuits of him, however, and this summer Simone Inzaghi became the fourth Nerazzurri manager to try and swoop for him.
In this instance, however, the former Lazio boss actually succeeded in getting his man, with the 35-year-old having been brought in to reinforce the attack at Inter following the shock sale of Romelu Lukaku in the summer.
So far, the former Giallorossi striker has had the desired impact at the Giuseppe Meazza, and Spalletti will know all about his qualities when his current team face off against his former one.
However, the coach could take some confidence from the fact that in the three occasions in which he faced Roma as Inter coach and Dzeko was on the pitch, the Nerazzurri won once and drew the other two matches, suggesting that perhaps he can get a result this weekend even with the threat of Dzeko looming to come back and haunt him.
