Ras' Football World

 Inter ended the 2021-22 season with two trophies in the trophy cabinet and nearly a clean sweep of domestic honours but had to relinquish the Scudetto they won last season to neighbours, AC Milan on the last day. Inter ended a long, excruciating wait of 11 years to win the Scudetto last season but we couldn’t enjoy the triumph for long as days after, Antonio Conte left by mutual consent. There was plenty of news report as well that our owners, the Suning Group was broke and had to balance their books which meant selling key players. The first painful sale the club made was of Achraf Hakimi. We thought that would be the only one. Later during pre-season, another bombshell was dropped when Romelu Lukaku was sold. This time it was because the player wanted to challenge himself again in the Premier League for a club that is dear to his heart. During Euro 2020, Christian Eriksen suffered a cardiac arrest and would not be able to play in Serie A with an implantable cardioverter-defibril...

  As the dust has settled on the Coppa Italia final, I share my reflections on a dramatic final. Nicolo Barella scored a great goal to open the scoring at a time when the game was still in its infancy. Neither team had exerted total control at that point of the match. The opening goal gave Inter the momentum to dominate the match in the first 25 minutes of the match. Thereafter, Juventus grew into the match. It is tough to completely dominate and keep out a team with quality like Juventus. I also felt that a reason why Juventus grew into the match was that our forwards, Lautaro Martinez and Edin Dzeko struggled to keep hold of possession and were second best to any ball played forward. Giorgio Chiellini epitomised Juventus’ fightback in typical fashion with determination and tenacity. In matches such as this, it is expected for Inter to face different phases of the match; from dominating the match, we had to dig deep and defend. Generally, we did a good job to withstand Juventus’...