Champions League. The victories of Napoli and Inter are a magnificent paradox

What a cup Tuesday for the Italians, this cup Tuesday. And not just for the results. That there could have been two victories, above all because Barcelona and Ajax are more, this year at least, what they had been in more or less recent history, although the Blaugrana lead the Liga and the Lancers are second in the Eredivisie. It is because of how the victories of Inter and Napoli arrived, so different that they unite in a football paradox what we were and what, continuously and in a very extemporaneous way, we aspire to be.

Inter beating Barcelona 1-0 at San Siroplaying Italian, score and defend, which are basically the three points that count. Napoli beating Ajax 1-6 in Amsterdam, to the Dutch, following the principle of the oranje balloon, that is, the more the better, fill everything that abundance is a virtue, in spite of the Protestant culture. It was from 6 June 1960 that the Lancers had not lost by taking six goals and with a five margin. It was played at the De Meer Stadion, the football revolution of Rinus Michels was not even in its embryo, Johan Cruijff was thirteen, and the match did not count for anything, it was the return, non-competitive, of the final play-off which, the week before, he assigned to the ‘Ajax the 10th Eredivisie.

Napoli plays well and since the beginning of the season: six wins and two draws in the league, three out of three in Champions League (the others against Liverpool and Rangers). It looks more like last year’s team, elegant and kind, too kind, almost soft when it was necessary to bring out the meanness. The farewells of Dries Mertens, for short Ciro, and Lorenzo Insigne, were almost a liberation. Sometimes it is necessary to cut the umbilical cords that have brought joys and failures to really change. Less shooting and more depth, more Luciano Spalletti and less Neapolitan Rococo, and with Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and Giacomo Raspadori and Piotr Zieliński finally free to do what he does best, that is to play free with the certainty of having people beating on the pitch behind him. flakes with the ball, Anguissa and Lobotka. At least so far, because then Spalletti always comes. The hope is that it will continue like this, because, regardless of football faith, it is not bad at all to see the European player play in Italy too. Napoli are doing it, Milan too, certainly both imbued with Italian rhythms, but you can’t have everything. The 1-6 at the Johan Cruijff Arena was also a message for those who say that in Italy they play badly and that Italian football is in a black crisis. All true, however, but every now and then good news, a small dose of optimism, is better than federal revolutions that are not and that instead should be there. And quickly too.

And while Napoli was reflected in the beautiful, embraced the ideal, Inter rethought itself, abjured itself, forgetting all that is new around Europe to rediscover an ancient physiognomy, to say catenacciara is heresy, because the bolt was something else and had its “rules”, although not written and quite interpretable. You don’t need to play well sometimes. You need to win and at any cost. Because in a group of Champions like this, with Bayern Munich and Barcelona, ​​you need to score points, preferably three, at home and hope to take away someone away and, perhaps, that the fourth, the one that should close to zero, gnaws something to the others. . But you can not rely on hope, you have to do it yourself, and that’s fine: a goal, a nice goal, from distance, and then to pull the cart and mule, to defend what you have earned. The good game doesn’t always pay off, especially when you smell rotten foundations and impending collapse. Sometimes it’s just a little backwater though.

Cup Tuesday, cup Tuesday, is a wonderful prospective joke, which can make you believe anything, even that you can eliminate that void of five years from the last participation of an Italian team from the Champions League semifinal. Not easy to happen, very unlikely, but you never know. The ways of the Champions are endless and there are seasons that roll up on themselves and end up resembling an Escher painting, where everything is out of order and for this reason it works.