A mixture of cheerful and gloomy situation seems to loom at Inter Milan’s headquarters, Appiano Gentile, as exciting stories goes along with disappointment especially regarding the conditions of the club’s star players such as Samuel Eto’o, Douglas Maicon, Wesley Sneijder and Lucio.
Eto’o looking really set for departure, Maicon picked up a knee problem which set to sidelined him for a month are the doom news, while the cheerful part is taken with Lucio’s contract extension and the strong possibilities that Sneijder won’t be going anywhere.
Should rumor to be trusted, in the next 48 hours, confirmation regarding Eto’o would be surfaced as the striker reportedly has already left the training ground and getting ready for his medical check up, which marked his arrival at Anzhi Machakalacka. The Cameroon international hasn’t been called up for the friendly Trofeo TIM tournament, set to take place on Thursday night at Bari, which would be a good test for Inter’s new coach, Gian Piero Gasperini, in seeing how can his team strike force cope the lose of the ex-Barcelona striker, who has been really influential for the Nerazzurri especially last season.
Another name confirmed to miss the unique triangle friendly pre-season tournament would be Brazilian right back, Maicon, who reportedly will be heading back to his native country for a surgery sometime this weekend. This news could be a big blow for the player as he won’t be available for quite a while, simply meaning it could definitely be difficult for the defender to regain his best form with the Nerazzurri after having a rather dip of performances last season.
Despite all the disappointing news, some encouragement also arrived for the Nerazzuri earlier this week as their experienced star defender, Lucio, finally decided to continue his adventure with Inter for another two years until 2014. The Brazilian center back’s previous contract supposedly will end in 2012 and should the extension plan didn’t work out well, the 33-years-old reportedly is looking to move away from the club but finally both parties can reach an agreement.
Beside Lucio’s renewal, there’s also something that could cheer up Interisti, at least for a while as there’s a strong indication that their wanted midfielder, Wesley Sneijder, won’t be going anywhere as the club’s president, Massimo Moratti insisted that they Dutchman isn’t being sold especially since the Nerazzurri already lose Eto’o. However, the fans can only stay calm if things remain the same until the last day of the transfer market as anything can still happen in the market this days, considering that financial issues are reportedly troubling the Italian side.
With all this mix of situation that has been evolving in the last few weeks, an interesting test arrives this Thursday for the Nerazzurri as they set to play a unique 45 minutes games against each of Juventus and Ac Milan in the Trofeo TIM. Although it’s merely nothing more than a friendly fixture, at the very least Interesti can see whether their club are not effected with the gloom stories and can showcase cheerful performance to lift the supporters believes.
