Not that a home draw with an excellent Catania is one of those results to remember. Not even adding the footnote "for how it was ...", it is still a meager point, only the umpteenth fool partially avoided after two consecutive home defeats against Novara and Bologna and the defeats in Rome, Naples and Marseilles. The real Inter, that of the treble but not only, would have not only avoided the double disadvantage, but probably also reacted so energetically as to bring home the three points.
But the real Inter, which had accustomed its fans to winning, winning and winning again, had perhaps never shown what was behind all those triumphs. That mysterious quid called "soul", which instead Sunday evening, at the half-time match against the Sicilians, it came out at the bitterest moment and light years away from those trophies raised to the sky. It was precisely the treble-bound goalkeeper, Julio Cesar, who motivated his teammates by giving the "la" to the (partial) comeback. A posthumous demonstration of what Beneamata has been in these last 6 years: not only victories, schemes, champions, cups and trophies in succession but, behind all this, in dim light compared to the marvelous glittering of the bulletin board, there was just a soul.
Forged by Mourinho, a master at cementing the dressing room and enhancing the self-esteem of his troops, evidently it hasn't been lost, despite two years lived between disappointments on the field and constant changes of coach. So far there are four in a season and a half, and if Ranieri didn't miss out on Sunday evening (such would have been his fate in the event of a defeat) he owes it to Julio Cesar: “We're playing with m...a, we can't be reduced to this, we can't end up like this – harangued the Brazilian number one in the Meazza dressing room -. We are Inter: we are not these, this is not our team, the one that has won everything. Let's not give up and let's do it for our colors and for our fans."
Creepy stuff, from films like "Gladiator" or, to stay in the sports arena, like Al Pacino in "Any Given Sunday": “Now, we either resurrect as a team or we will fold. An inch at a time, one pattern after another, until the defeat. We're in hell now, gentlemen."
As for emotions, echoing Julio Cesar's words came in the second half, at the time of the substitution, the tears of Esteban Cambiasso, another glorious veteran of the treble. The Argentine didn't react selfishly, and the frustration for his bad performance turned into desperate tears, almost a mortification in front of the public who booed him perhaps for the first time. No controversies, no recriminations, no protagonisms. Only so many feelings, which if they don't pull Inter out of the crisis into which it is dramatically plunged, if nothing else they will make the memory of these inimitable champions more pleasant. Until last year we saw Inter win, Sunday evening we understood why they succeeded.
