What is the meaning of this Club World Cup?

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A month of football? Again? Even the most avid Italian fan, having reached mid-June exhausted by the results of his favourite team – with a few happy exceptions – and by the fifteen days of ordinary madness that have overwhelmed the FIGC and the Italian national team, looks with suspicion and distrust at the Club World Cup , the latest modern devilry wanted by FIFA to try to overcome the old formula, considered obsolete and unattractive. The first to be burned, at the time of the announcement, were the players, pressed like sardines in a calendar that leaves very little room for rest. But this too is football, and so off to another tournament with 32 teams, a transfer window created ad hoc to wink at the battleships capable of spending and spending and at a competition that, however, in particular for the two Italian teams involved, could provide useful indications .

Inter and Juventus will have to try to find the dawn within the dusk, to borrow a concept made famous by Franco Battiato (Prospettiva Nevski, 1980), but drawn with both hands from the philosophy of Gurdjieff: the light in the darkness, the beginning in the end . This Club World Cup, which comes at the end of a grueling season for Inter in terms of commitments and for Juventus if we think about all the effort made on a technical level, must necessarily represent an opportunity to restart, as well as a way to evaluate how to intervene during the summer. All this while trying to move with extreme delicacy: it will have an impact, and not a small one, on the season to come, especially with regards to athletic preparation which will inevitably be conditioned by the date on which we return to work. We will soon find out whether Inter and Juventus will see the US event as a burden or an opportunity: but Cristian Chivu certainly cannot present himself in a subdued manner in a club that he knows well but which, despite respecting him for his past as a footballer, has seen his arrival as a downsizing .

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The club would have gladly retained Inzaghi and done everything to bring Cesc Fabregas to Pinetina once they discovered the Piacenza player's Arab plan, but instead they find themselves starting again with an undoubtedly promising coach, capable of straightening the bar of a Parma that seemed close to shipwreck, but with a dozen appearances as a coach among the professionals. It could have been the opportunity to test Pio Esposito, but the injury that struck him at the end of the B playoffs will force him to enter the game only in the second phase of the tournament, should Inter qualify. And so eyes are focused on the two new faces, Sucic and Luis Henrique, trying to discover what the tactical ideas are of Chivu , who in Parma started in one way (four-man defense) and finished in another (three-man line with great defensive help also from the two full-backs). Everything would suggest a job along the lines of that carried out in recent years by Inzaghi, even if Chivu in the United States will have to think first of all about not further wearing out the various Bastoni, Barella and Dimarco, who appeared at the limits of presentable in the Azzurri tragedy after having suffered the pains of hell in the Champions League final.

Igor Tudor feared having to face the Club World Cup as a sort of final exam, instead he received a warm pat on the back from the new Juventus general manager, Damien Comolli: he will be Juventus' coach next season . Of course, it seems like a confirmation more for lack of alternatives, given Antonio Conte's decision not to betray the contract signed with De Laurentiis, than for actual conviction, but it is a reward for the Juventus spirit that the Croatian giant has never hidden and for a season finale that allowed him to cross the finish line of fourth place and the related placement in the Champions League. The result did not arrive brilliantly, with many half-false steps one after the other, but no one at Juve could afford to discuss the hard-fought qualification for Europe that counts.

The club has allowed Tudor to have the two most controversial loans available in the United States, Kolo Muani and Francisco Conceiçao, who were at risk of returning to their parent club. It will be an opportunity to understand even better what to do with them, whether to sit down with Paris Saint-Germain and Porto to negotiate a possible redemption or whether it is best to let them go without too many regrets, even if the Frenchman's haul in the months with Juventus is far from negligible, especially considering that Vlahovic's experience in Turin seems to have largely come to an end. Paradoxically, if we take into account Tudor's long wave compared to Chivu's at the beginning, it is Juventus who are taking the Club World Cup as a sort of casting : from Rugani to Kostic, from Kelly to Douglas Luiz, without forgetting Nico Gonzalez and Koopmeiners, there are so many players who, for diametrically opposed reasons, will have to make the most of the American showcase. The defense will have a limited number of men, given that Renato Veiga has returned to Chelsea, and there is curiosity surrounding Gleison Bremer, absent since October: he will fly to the United States, but without forcing it .

What makes the clubs face this latest competition with a smile, however forced, on their lips, is the economic return: Inter should have a guaranteed minimum of 24 million euros, Juventus between 18 and 20 million. Just to give you an idea, Chelsea earned 22 million euros by winning the Conference League . Everything else depends on the results and it is realistic to think that the Nerazzurri and Bianconeri will manage to get through the group stage (the first two in each group go through, Inter is with River Plate, Urawa Red Diamonds and Monterrey; Juventus with Manchester City, Wydad Casablanca and Al Ain), thus increasing the fee. And this explains why we will still have a month of football to watch. In Italy we will see all the matches for free on Dazn and the best match of the day on the Mediaset networks (Canale 5 or Italia 1).

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