Quite a few people have put Inter Milan at the forefront of being the favorites for the Serie A this season. With Juventus being snapped open out of their key players, it's now open season in Italy. People point to the fact that Mancini has won numerous trophies with Inter and Man City, so therefore he should see continued success with this current Milan squad.
Why don't people ever do the proper research when they make these assertions?
First of all, let's look at Mancini and his first batch of success with Inter. Do people forget his success began when Juventus were relegated during the Calciopoli scandal? Which meant Inter took players like Ibrahimovic and Vieira, and with no real competition in the Serie A along with the players they already had at Inter, it was a stroll in the park for him. A newborn baby could have been sitting on the bench wailing orders in their infant tongue, and Inter would still have won the title. It was easy and straightforward. The team was just far too good and talented for anyone to compete with them. That era for the Serie A was almost as one-sided as this one with Juventus with the only difference being Juve were beatable, that Inter team were not.
To give him credit for that success would be incorrect. His coaching prowess or skill was hardly tested in the way that Diego Simeone's was when he won the La Liga. When you have players that are of such a level, and your competition isn't very good, then how much managerial skill do you really have to employ? Remember as well, this was Ibrahimovic in his prime when he was regarded as the most dangerous striker in the world. It was a case of shoving a cigar in your mouth, sitting back and just waiting for the eventual outcome of Inter walking off the pitch as winners to happen. I refuse to give Mancini credit for that.
Moving onto City, this again was a similar position to the one he had at Inter. Instead of having an amazing team, he had a whole of cash to spend on players. City were joining the trend that Abramovich started with Chelsea and now wanted to have their own super team built on riches just like the Russian's Blues. Again, how can I applaud Mancini for his efforts if he is pretty much given carte-blanche as to who he can buy in order to bring success?
But, all because you can buy whoever you want, it does not equate to instant success. The Real Madrid Galacticos did not automatically start winning, it took time for them to gel as a team before that happened. Also, he was in the most competitive league in the world. The Premiership may not be the best technically, but almost every foreign player who has come to England have talked about how tough it is to play in. Coupled with the fact that the great Alex Ferguson was around, a man that will go down as one of the greatest managers to have ever lived, Mancini was no longer in the picnic park back at Italy.Taking all this into account, Mancini only managed to win the Premiership once. That's it. With all those riches, he only won the league once. In the season that he won the league, it was literally the very last kick of the season that handed him the title and was won on goal difference. If Aguero had not connected well with the ball or if Balotell's pass to him had gone astray, then Mancini would have left England having never won a single league title with City. Then you look at the subsequent season where they tried to defend their title, and they got put back in their place with United beating them by eleven points.
With all this knowledge, how then can you call Mancini a great manager. Ferguson won the league multiple times, with multiple squads, that were never really that good. Mourinho took home the Champions League with some team called FC Porto. Diego Simeone without a SINGLE superstar won the La Liga ahead of Barcelona and Real Madrid and was thirty seconds away from winning the Champions League. Wenger finished a season unbeaten in one of the toughest leagues in the world. Benitez probably gave the greatest halftime team-talk in a major final. These are what you call true accomplishments and these are people who ought to be given the due credit and praise. Not Mancini. Until he achieves something similar to what those mentioned have...his successes have been from a privileged position.
HH
