Inter building an Italian contingent

FC Internazionale Milano, "Brothers of the World". Considering the fact that this team was created in 1908 when players split from what is now called AC Milan due to a desire to accept and welcome foreign players, it is no surprise that it is usually the club in Serie A with the fewest Italian players. This can often lead to scorn from fans and officials in Italy who feel that Inter is not "Italian enough", though that was kind of the point. With the arrival of Antonio Candreva I decided to check on how many Italians Inter currently has in the squad and the number surprised me.

The addition of Candreva takes the number of non-youth Italians in the squad to 8: Tommaso Berni, Danilo D'Ambrosio, Davide Santon, Andrea Ranocchia, Marco Andreolli, Antonio Candreva, Daniel Bessa (he's 23 now so I don't count him as a youth player anymore), and Eder. This list doesn't even include promising players out on loan (Francesco Bardi, Federico Dimarco, Gianluca Capari, etc.).

Inter's Italian contingent is actually the largest of any nationality in the first team. The next closest is Argentina with 5 (Juan Pablo Carrizo, Cristian Ansaldi, Ever Banega, Rodrigo Palacio, and Mauro Icardi). The Italians might not hold the lead for long though, Santon is trying to leave for West Ham, Bessa will probably leave on loan, and if a halfway decent offer comes in for Ranocchia he will be shipped out immediately. Andreolli will probably stick around since Juan Jesus left for Roma and should get some decent playing time since Inter will be fighting on three fronts this season, though Berni will likely never play a single minute as the third choice keeper.

Personally I don’t care how many Italians Inter has, I’ll watch international tournaments but don’t particularly care for them all that much plus as long as a player is good it doesn’t matter to me where he comes from. A majority of those Italian players listed will not be first choice players, but if they can provide depth to the squad while shutting up Serie A “purists”, that works for me.