AC Milan and Inter are level on points at the top of the league, which has sent the media into overdrive about a potential derby Scudetto battle.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) have published a piece this morning outlining the similarities but mainly the differences between the two coaches and how they like to run their respective sides.
Tactics
Stefano Pioli loves to invent and is not afraid to change. Since he arrived he has invented more than one version Milan. Faced with a January crisis last season, he turned the team around with a three-man defence.
His team returned to the top after a traumatic 5-1 defeat in the derby, and it is because he was able to make appropriate adjustments with more weight in the midfield and more prudence in his tactics.
On Wednesday against Cagliari he fielded Yacine Adli in the regista role and the short corner paid off leading to the second goal. Having fixed the game principles and the balance (five in build-up, five in attack), Pioli moves the functions onto the pitch.
He won a Scudetto by pushing Tonali and Bennacer up field, with each taking turns, and inverting the full-backs. Compared to Inzaghi, he is more surprising and reactive to the unexpected.
On the contrary, Simone Inzaghi – faced with the crisis of last season – remained immobile, as they advise you to do when you encounter a bear. He never gave in to the temptation of a four-man defence and, perhaps, an attacking midfielder behind two strikers.
With fundamentalist faith, he asked his players to trace the usual lines of play with a highlighter, until the bear of the crisis was gone and Inter continued straight to the Champions League final.
The spectacular ease of play shown by the Nerazzurri in the first five rounds is the result of this faith and three years of training certain principles. Every Inter play is coded.
The price to pay for giving up unpredictability is the condemnation to beat those lines of play at maximum speed and power, because if Inter slow down – as in San Sebastian and against Sassuolo – they struggle.
Management
With the entry of Luka Romero at the end of Cagliari-Milan, Stefano Pioli fielded yet another new signing from the summer. It’s a precise philosophy: extend the team as much as possible, involve everyone.
Pioli immediately launched new additions, as he did last year with Charles De Ketelaere, before surrendering to the evidence. The feeling is that Pioli has a greater empathetic talent than Inzaghi, as seen by the development of so many individuals.
While being tactically conservative, Inzaghi is also conservative in the management of formations. The last demonstration is on Wednesday.
With two matches in four days and the very delicate Champions League round on Tuesday, a certain amount of turnover seemed inevitable, perhaps Mkhitaryan, Bastoni and the two strikers could have got some rest.
Instead, the starting team played, struggling due to tiredness. The reserve options, as Adli demonstrated, bring other motivations into play.
The first changes arrived only after Sassuolo’s two goals. Conservative and the substitutions are also codified: role by role, a boooked player almost always comes off etc. and the new signings must have more patience than at Milan.
Leadership
Pioli earned the group’s respect thanks to the knowledge with which he raised Milan upon his arrival. Even Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a guy who doesn’t recognise leadership so easily, immediately sided with Pioli.
The Scudetto win made him even stronger in the eyes of the team and the owners decided to keep him after Paolo Maldini’s sacking. He never has the fury on the sidelines of someone like Conte, instead preferring to gather the facts after a game – good or bad – and get back to work.
From final to final, Simone Inzaghi demonstrated to his troops that he is someone who knows how to win. And the Champions League final lost in Istanbul is worth even more than the domestic cups won.
If a coach takes you to the showcase game – the most important match of the year, with the eyes of the world on you – it’s worth following him. The journey to Istanbul gave Inzaghi a leap in image and leadership.
The scene of him showing Marusic where to take the throw-in and Caicedo’s subsequent goal in the 94th minute of Lazio-Juve is the symbol of how he knows how to make an impact from the field.
But his Inter, in the last league season, lost 12 games and often due to the wrong approach. Here he needs to improve. The defeat against Sassuolo is a bad set-back.
Appeal
Stefano Pioli’s honeymoon for the 2021-22 scudetto lasted a long time, to the tune of ‘Pioli is on fire’. A fairytale summer spent under siege by grateful and enthusiastic fans.
The difficult last season and, above all, the humiliating 5-1 derby cooled this bond a bit. During Milan’s game against Newcastle in the Champions League, when the line-ups were announced at San Siro, it was met with mixed whistles and applause.
In general, the Pioli-fan relationship remains solid, especially with the Curva Sud with whom he has had more than one discussion like after the defeat against Spezia.
The relationship he has with the owners is also solid and, apart from the title win, they recognise his competence and serious work. The times of Rangnick and the broken revolution are long gone. He no longer has Paolo Maldini’s protective umbrella, but all things considered, he is at the centre of a positive project.
Simone Inzaghi’s environmental situation resembles that of his derby colleague. The Inter coach also suffered drops in approval ratings in the darkest period of last season and, generally, due to the league season with 12 defeats.
But the Champions League final brought a sort of plenary indulgence: fans in ecstasy and Zhang too. A song for him always rains from the Curva Nord, so from the point of view of appeal in their own world, Inzaghi and Pioli are on par, as in the standings. Until the next result. Football is fickle.
What kind of joke post is this?
Inzaghi has been outplaying and outsmarting Pioli in the last 5 games.
There is no competition here. It is just disrespectful towards Inzaghi
What disrespect? You are saying, as if Inzaghi is Guardiola or Klopp.
Inzaghis is Guardiola/Klopp when and only when the opponent is Pioli.
On other day he is another Giampaolo, when facing a different coach.
@Mirjalol I’d have to agree. It’s a general comparison because a head to head comparison is not under consideration. We all know who comes out on top.
Even the basis of alot of these arguments are suspect. Pioli “isn’t afraid to change” …more like he’s forced to change because of pressure from losing and that’s why he changed tactics..it’s only out is desperation or by force. It doesn’t come from an innate quality of his. Him turning to a 3 man defence in January is proof of that, it’s not that he wanted to do it smh. Leadership? Really? Why is Ibra rumoured to come back, for his good looks?
I feel like you wrote this @Oliver because I said Inzaghi isn’t Pep and Pioli isn’t (paraphrasing) even a Conte.
This is a weak justification for Pioli and history shows when Pioli and Inzaghi line up, Inzaghi might as well be Pep.
Since Cardinale is all about media, is he paying SempreMilan anything?