Super Cup, after years of domination, Juve faces Inter as an outsider

Eleven points behind in the championship weigh. Chiellini: “Their favorites” But Inzaghi doesn’t like it: “In competitions of this kind we always start on an equal footing”

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Strange feeling, that of Juventus. After years of domination, responsibility and pressure on her, she does not approach a very popular party as a favorite. To tell the truth, already in the last final of the Italian Cup, someone assigned the label to Atalanta, but it was only a matter of classification, coat of arms and experience compensated: the superiority of Inter, rival tonight at San Siro in the Supercoppa, pass instead the eleven points behind with one race less, is a mirror of quality and mentality, it does not reveal an occasionally revised hierarchy but a real passing of the baton.

«The Nerazzurri are favorites – Giorgio Chiellini acknowledges -, but anything can happen in a straight match and, paradoxically, when you are not the favorite there is more desire to prove that you can win a trophy. Maybe it is more difficult to do it in a 38-game stage course, given that Inter will probably win the Scudetto again this year. Ask Bastoni what I told him in October, when they were far from the top: “Only you can lose the championship”. Maybe I’m wrong, but only Milan are keeping the pace and Inter have a superior squad, they are mature and complete ».

The captain interprets a common and even obvious thought, but Simone Inzaghi doesn’t like it, he denies a more comfortable position: «I was lucky enough to play many finals and favorites, in matches like this, there aren’t any. Juve is used to playing them and comes from eight useful results in a row, but we are in an excellent moment and we will play for it: the episodes and motivations will be very important ». The Nerazzurri coach only clarifies (“No fear, if anything a stimulus”) then, rummaging through his memory, teases: “The clear favorite for the Scudetto at the beginning of the season seems to me to be Juventus, but the predictions change and in any case the fight is still open. “.

Role-playing games, unique reality. On the one hand, a team that has already been the mistress of Serie A and has been able to compensate very heavy farewells, on the other a fourth place in the last dive and no more Cristiano Ronaldo who hid so many flaws, on the one hand the continuity of a winning project and on the other, zeroing and rebuilding.

Massimiliano Allegri could have inherited the former, Zhang and Marotta had proposed him the bench, but he preferred to go home and never regretted: “Marotta I heard him, every now and then we had lunch together – he smiles -, I am linked to the managers with I have worked with, I speak with Galliani a couple of times a week. I am happy with the choice made, knowing that it will take a little time to return to being absolute protagonists. But it is a challenge, we will go back to being strong when we manage to have a balance that no positive or negative event shifts. Not even the result of this Super Cup. I don’t know if Inter will open a cycle, we will have to be good at putting a spanner in the works. We must try to reach those who precede us, then next year we will see if we can shorten the times and fight for the Scudetto ». –