Internazionale Milano - Il Ritorno

Being out of action for almost 2 years certainly hasn’t helped Joel Obi to convince Luís Figo of his abilities. Just hours before Inter’s friendly match against Galatasaray the club announced that Obi is being sold to Sassuolo for a fee of €3m.

The Nigerian midfielder Joel Obi came through Inter’s youth section making his debut at the age of 19 in 2010 and was predicted a bright future. The predictions about him seemed to be correct as he broke in to the first team the following season making 27 league appearances. That season was about it for the now 23-year-old Obi, injuries have limited him to only 10 appearances in the last 2 seasons, 2 for Inter and 8 for Parma, where he spent last season on loan. He made a grand total of 39 league appearances for Inter.

Almost everyone agreed that Joel Obi most certainly didn’t have a future at Internazionale and when Sassuolo, Saint-Étienne and Sochaux offered €3m for the left-footed midfielder they were quickly accepted. Obi, however rejected the French clubs and most likely a bigger paycheck as he wanted to still be close to his home, Milano.

”It saddens me deeply to leave Inter. I’ve been at the club for such a long time it feels like my home. I will always love the club and the fans but I realise I have nothing to do here for the time being. For the sake of my career I need a fresh start, not just a season-long loan, I need a club that really believes in me enough to buy me. Sassuolo did exactly that and I’m happy to join them.”

Probably a wise move to let Obi go. He is a decent player but if Inter want to go back to where they belong then he's probably not the calibre of player they want. Nice layout, too.

A heavily rotated Inter were able to brush aside former Inter-star Wesley Sneijder’s new club Galatasaray with ease. Southampton-loanee Pablo Osvaldo showed the fans his capabilities with a hat trick in his first half in the Inter shirt.

Just 30 seconds after kickoff Mauro Icardi was able to put a through ball behind the Galatasaray defence where Pablo Osvaldo was able to score on his first touch.

The game continued and neither of the teams had a shot on goal until the 41st minute when Mateo Kovacic shot a brilliant free kick which rebounded from the bar straight to the feet of Osvaldo who could make it 2-0.

The third and final goal of the game was scored right before halftime when Danilo D’Ambrosio found who else but Pablo Osvaldo with a cross, a fired up Osvaldo put it behind Fernando Muslera with incredible force. The hot-headed Italian has certainly straightened out a lot of the question marks surrounding him and proved who should be in top of the pecking order.

Walter - I have kind of a soft spot for Obi so it was a hard decision, especially since he's homegrown and everything!

Today Inter and Maribor reached an agreement about 18-year-old Luka Zahovic. The deal is said to be structured over 48 months with a total value of €3.5m and will see the Slovenian striker loaned back for the remainder of the season. Zahovic becomes the second Slovenian to sign for Inter in this window as Rene Krhin made a €1m switch from Bologna before Figo’s arrival.

Luka Zahovic was born in Portugal and belonged to SL Benfica’s youth academy until 2007 when the family moved back to Slovenia due to his father being named director of football at NK Maribor. His father, Zlatko Zahovic, is one of Slovenia’s best players ever and still remains the top goalscorer for the Slovenian national team with 35 goals in 80 caps.

Father and son Zahovic joined Maribor in 2007 and Luka rose through the ranks of their youth system making his senior debut in their final league game of 2013 at the age of 17. The first half of the following season he was loaned out to Verzej in the Slovenian second division where he scored 3 goals in 10 appearances, for the second part of the season he returned to Maribor and where he made 11 appearances.

Being born in Guimarães in Portgal he holds dual citizenships and as he's still uncapped at senior level he is eligible for both the Portuguese national team as well as the Slovenian. Portugal manager Fernando Santos is said to be willing to give him his first cap although Luka himself has expressed his desire to follow in his father’s footsteps and play for Slovenia. Whatever country he chooses to play for will definitely get one of Europe’s most promising young strikers.

I'm really liking the updates man, it's been a very promising start to the story! Good luck with the season ahead.

pompeyblue - Grazie!

I've never tried Zahovic, I wonder if hes as good as you make him sound nice layouts keep em coming

Icarus - Never tried him either but he impressed me in this year's Champions league so figured I should try him out!

Rafael Tolói became a semi-familiar figure for a lot Serie A fans last year as he joined Roma for the second half of the season. He didn’t really make a lasting impression as he just made 5 appearances but that were apparently enough to impress Luís Figo and the Inter board about his capabilities. The 23-year-old centre-back will be joining Internazionale in a deal worth €6m with an additional €2m being paid over a 24 month period.

Tolói came through Goiás youth academy and joined São Paolo in 2012 for a fee of €2.6m. He quickly impressed and broke into the first team squad almost instantly. He went on and made 12 appearances for the Brazilian U20's but is yet to make his debut for the 'Seleção'.

After 2 seasons and 41 appearances for São Paolo the promising centre-back was loaned out to Roma, but he didn’t really get a fair chance at the capital club as in-form Medhi Benatia and Leandro Castán were Rudi García’s number one choices throughout the entire season. His 5 appearances didn't impress Roma enough to trigger the €5.5m clause agreed in his loan deal and he was sent back to Brazil where he made a further 21 appearances before putting pen to paper on a 5-year contract with Inter, granting him a weekly wage of €20.000.

"Coming to Italy was a dream come true for me. I was devastated when I had to leave the European football so quickly once I had finally gotten into it. Therefore I will do my very best to prove my worth as I play for Inter, it is a great honour to play for such a personality as Luís Figo and a team such as Internazionale, they are definitely giants in the football world."

With Tolói leaving the Estádio do Morumbi, rumour is that São Paolo are becoming increasingly interested in replacing him with Jonathan from Inter. No details are at this point public but word is that talks have been held between all parties and that Jonathan is just details away from signing a contract with São Paolo.

Good signing!

Sheik Mansour, owner of Manchester City and New York City FC, recently acquired the Australian club Melbourne Heart and renamed it Melbourne City. The purpose with this project is of course to increase their market shares in Oceania, which is relatively unexplored football territory. With David Villa joining the club on loan from NYCFC they also have a fix star to increase their hype further. But in the game against Inter they showed that they were more than merely a brand.

During the first minutes of the game the home team completely dominated possession and just 7 minutes into the game David Villa were able to rake in a well placed corner from Massimo Murdocca making it 1-0. However this fired up a fairly rotated Inter, Hernanes and Guarín played one-two’s throughout the entire defence and Hernanes located Icardi who, with a well-placed shot, equalised.

Inter’s second goal came through a Rory Delap-like throw-in from Hugo Campagnaro that reached Federico Bonazzoli who chipped it to Fredy Guarín who in his turn banged it in behind Melbourne’s goalkeeper Velaphi making it 1-2. Rafael Tolói made his anticipated debut for Inter and was the mastermind who orchestrated Inter’s final goal. With a well-placed cross from the half-way line into the box Federico Bonazzoli was able to snap it up and quickly played it to Mauro Icardi who then scored his second goal of the game.

Just before halftime a seemingly harmless cross from David Williams slipped through Samir Handanovic’s fingers and made it 2-3. At halftime several youngsters were given their chance on the pitch, 16-year-old midfielder Melkamu Taufer, 18-year-old defender Giacomo Sciacca and 18-year-old striker George Puscas. Having this many inexperienced players under the age of 20 on the pitch at the same time seemed like a bold move from Luís Figo but the youngsters impressed and were able to pull it through ending the game 2-3 to Internazionale.

Good like mate!

After only making 4 appearances last season Marco Andreolli and his representatives have held talks with Luís Figo about his current squad status. The 28-year-old defender was disappointed with Figo´s response and demanded a move from Inter. Udinese instantly acted and made a €2.9m bid which Inter accepted right away.

Andreolli arrived at Inter in 2003 from Padova, he spent his first 2 years with the 'Primavera' and made his senior debut in 2005 at 18 years of age. Coming through as a promising centre-back he quickly attracted interest form other clubs and in 2007, after another 6 appearances for Nerazzurri, he was part in the exchange-deal that brought Cristian Chivu to Inter and Andreolli to Roma. However he wasn’t as good as expected and was instantly loaned out to Vicenza and the following year to Sassuolo, both in Serie B.

After only 8 appearances for Roma in the 2009/2010 season he was sold to Chievo Verona for the small fee of €800.000. At Chievo he finally broke into the first team, making a total of 79 appearances during his 3 years at the club before returning to his boyhood club Inter on a free transfer. Last season he made 4 appearances for Inter, making it a total of 11 appearances for the Milano-based club.

”It is with a heavy heart that I leave Inter, I was raised here and I wanted to play here. I know that I'm good enough to play here but if Luís Figo doesn’t agree that’s his problem, I know that I will prove him wrong at Udinese.”

Today Inter announced that 17-year-old Breel Embolo will be joining them on a season-long loan. The young Basel-raised midfielder has been attracting interest from several big clubs such as Bayern München, Wolfsburg and Everton, but he finally chose to join Internazionale. Embolo's loan-deal includes an option to buy him for €7m, which is most likely to be triggered by Inter at the end of his loan.

Embolo was born in Yaoundé in Cameroon but moved to Switzerland at the age of 6. He joined FC Basel’s youth academy in 2010 at the age of 13 and made his senior debut just 4 years later, coming on as a late substitute versus Red Bull Salzburg in Europa League. 3 days later he made his debut in the Swiss Super League and scored after just 4 minutes of play.

The 17-year-old midfielder is about as versatile as a Swiss Army knife and is capable of playing in all offensive positions although he excels in the role right behind the striker, either as a trequartista or as an advanced playmaker.

Embolo holds dual citizenships but recently declared that he is only interested in a call-up from the Swiss national team due to the uncertainties surrounding the Cameroon national team during this year’s World Cup in Brazil.

”A lot of people advised me not to join Inter as they thought it would inhibit my development. But after I talked to Walter Samuel who spent almost a decade at Inter I was convinced that it would be the right move. Next week I will start training with the senior squad but I will most likely play for the Primavera team at first, but I will work as hard as it takes to prove my value and get a chance in the senior team.”