Simone Inzaghi’s situation at Inter appears to be nothing less than a “paradox” given the team’s exploits in Europe juxtaposed with the woeful form they have been showing in Serie A.

This is highlighted in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper La Repubblica, via FCInterNews, who note how the Nerazzurri’s league form has dipped to such a drastic degree that Inzaghi is at risk of being sacked even whilst the team sparkle in the Champions League.

All season, it has seemed to be the case that the Champions League are Inter’s, and Inzaghi’s, ace in the hole.

When some tough defeats in the league were turning up the pressure during the fall, it was with a win and a draw against Barcelona in the group stage of the competition that the team and coach gave their defiant answer.

Then, as the Nerazzurri’s league form started to tail off in February and March, victory in a round of sixteen tie against Porto gave Inzaghi something to point to as concrete evidence that his work is having the desired results.

Last Tuesday’s 2-0 triumph away to Benfica in the first leg of the quarterfinal tie was enough to temporarily put the loss to Fiorentina and subsequent draw against Salernitana in the league in the rearview mirror.

However, even finishing the job against Benfica on Wednesday in the second leg at the San Siro may not be enough to save Inzaghi from yet another league defeat.

Whilst the Nerazzurri’s league form has never been consistently good this season, it had never previously been as abject as it has been for the past month.

Any one of the team’s recent league results would not be impossible to bounce back from on its own, but the cumulative effect of one points out of fifteen is that Inzaghi now faces the very real possibility of being forced out at the end of the season, or even before then.

The fact that all of this is coming at the same time that the team keep providing defiant answers in Europe, La Repubblica suggest, can only be described as a “paradox.”