Youth Project Resurrected?

First of all I would like to say that I appreciate everyone being patient with me getting things back up to speed here. I would like to extend even more heartfelt thanks to Drew and Kirby for putting up articles while I was away – I would love to see that continued. Drew if you continue the articles I will try to get you a writer account so that you can put up your own stuff.

Moving on, I will try to get something up everyday, but… well, life has changed for me, as it does to us all. We will have to see how it shakes out.

Last June I wrote a piece that expressed dissatisfaction with 2 aspects of Inter life in The New Football Order. It’s a downer article and I encourage everyone under the age of 35 who have no job, no mortgage, no kids and isn’t married to read it (here) – you folks irritate me. And get off my lawn.

It was a depressing time. All the promising young players were being sent off to Livorno to play. Mazzarri was famous for not liking kids. But an interesting thing happened – I was wrong. Not about all of it, there isn’t going to be a stadium any time soon. But the youth project thingy… that seems to be somewhat resurrected.

Last weekend the last portion of the game had these players on the field:

Handanovic

Campagnaro

Rannochia

JJ

Nagatomo

Taider

Kovacic

Guarin

Jonathan

Palacio

Icardi

Subbed off were:

Alvarez

Cambiasso

Kuzmanovic

Add’em all up and what you have is 3 players who are over 30 playing in the game against Genoa: Palacio (31), Campagnaro (just turned 33) and Cambiasso (just turned 33).

Balance that against Kovacic (19), Taider (21), JJ (just turned 22) and Icardi (20) and you have yourself a nice little blend of pensioners and embryos.

This next part is added in just for me since this is something of a pet peeve of mine… but for the first time in a long time the remaining team used in this game  – equal to the relatively extreme ages of the above two groups, as it happens - is firmly set in the prime of their athletic lives. Slowly but surely the powers that be in this team have, chronologically anyways, but us right in the athletic sweet spot for many of these players. Those who were here 2 years ago were present for my rants against the age of this team and how few players were actually in their primes. It’s like I just woke up today and saw what had happened, Scrooge (not the one that swims in his money) at the end of his Christmas tale.

Why, more transfers like this and I will wonder who’s been tutoring Branca… however, secretly I think I know the answer. A lot of the good stuff that’s happened to this team in the last 2 summers has been a direct result of Marco Fassone, including the choosing of Mazzarri which is looking like a very smart move as time progresses and the closing of the Nike partnership which is a big deal now for the cash and could be huge farther along the line if it pans out.

FORZA