His playing career was overshadowed by the exploits of his big brother. His coaching career has hitherto been marked by near misses. Now -finally- Simone Inzaghi appears destined to have his moment in the spotlight.
Approaching the midpoint of Serie A, Inzaghi’s Inter Milan leads the league and is the favourite to win the title.
After routing city rival AC Milan 5-1 in the derby in September, Inter drew at second-placed Juventus and put on a convincing performance in a 3-0 victory at defending champion Napoli in successive matches over the last two weeks.
“It was a show of force,” Inzaghi said after the win at Stadio Diego Armando Maradona. “But, we have a lot of work ahead, and we’re going to approach it in the same manner that we did over these last three-and-a-half months.”
While Inzaghi played on the star-studded Lazio team that won Serie A in 2000, it was Filippo “Superpippo” Inzaghi who gained the bigger headlines by helping Juventus and Milan to a series of domestic and European titles and Italy to the 2006 World Cup trophy.
Now, Filippo is on the other end of Serie A, having recently been hired to coach last-placed Salernitana. The brothers are scheduled to meet in February.
While Simone had a successful start to his coaching career at Lazio by winning an Italian Cup and a couple of Italian Super Cups with the Roman club, he was thrust into a difficult position at Inter when Antonio Conte left unexpectedly after guiding the Nerazzurri to the 2021 Serie A title.
