Inter says goodbye to Lucas. The official status is still missing, but the Brazilian is already to be considered a PSG player to all intents and purposes. For the umpteenth time our football must bow to the power of the sheikhs. The message that comes from Paris is loud and clear: it is useless to make contacts and work on a player for months on the sly, in the end only the money counts and the PSG really seem to have unlimited funds.
Leonardo closed the deal in one night, beating the competition from Inter and Manchester United with a maxi offer of 45 million euros in cash. An insane and off-market figure, as admitted by Massimo Moratti yesterday evening: “Paris Saint Germain's offer is beyond any logic, 45 million would have been a discordant note for us. We could never have reached those figures, but in any case there is no regret for not having closed the operation”. It's hard to blame the Nerazzurri president, who for the second time in a few months has seen a player taken away from the French club (it had already happened with Lavezzi).
PSG are the only team in Europe able to spend 45 million on a 19-year-old (!), even allowing himself the luxury of leaving him in Brazil until January, fully fulfilling the requests of San Paolo. The Inter fans dreamed of a coup, but in the face of this unfair competition (Financial Fair Play, help us!) they'll understand. Now, however, the Nerazzurri must get up again, and quickly too. This is why a real market summit was staged yesterday at the Corso Vittorio Emanuele headquarters, which brought together all the top management of the club, including Stramaccioni.
The match sanctioned a clear change of strategy, starting with the game formation: once Lucas is lost, the focus will be on the 4-3-2-1, therefore the hunt for the attacking winger can be considered over. Gaston Ramirez and “Papu” Gomez are not very convincing (the former costs too much, the latter is not considered up to certain stages), so it is better to strengthen midfield and defense, without neglecting the role of deputy Milito, who will still have to be bought. The hunt for three goals will thus start from today, with absolute priority going to the midfielder, who in Stramaccioni's dreams would be Fernando del Porto. The Pazzini-Quagliarella exchange with Juventus could come back into the news later, which would solve a problem for both clubs.
