Inter

How Inter can win against the rest of the continent

Don’t sell Maicon. Don’t sell Ibrahimovic. Use Carvalho to attack from the central defense. Let Deco run wild from an attacking central midfield position. Play Santon at one wing back, and Maicon the other. Let Materazzi be on the bench. Let Zanetti, Chivu, Samuel & Cordoba figure out the middle two positions and stay healthy in their aging years.
In midfield, sell Viera, move to a 4-1-3-2, with Cambiasso as holding, Deco in attack, Mancini on one wing and Muntari on the other. Or sell Mancini, who they only bought from Roma to hurt the competition (and it worked, they dropped to 6th in Serie A) and go spend some money on Robben. I know, I know, maybe the Special One doesn’t want to work with him again, but I don’t imagine why not. I never heard of problems between the two, and they won 2 EPL titles together. Besides, he’s less likely to get hurt in Italy, unless falling over from a puff of wind hurts nowadays. It would continue the tradition of excellent Dutch players playing in Italy, also. Stankovic will get playing time – Mourinho will make sure of it, but he needs more creativity from midfield in attack, and that’s Deco in a nutshell. Ideally he’d go buy someone younger like David Silva or go get Essien, but that’s not going to happen.
Up front you have Ibrahimovic & Balotelli. The others are old. Develop Obinna, or maybe buy a real striker out there. Who? Well, again, the Dutch thing: Huntelaar is available. So is Ruud van Nistelrooy, actually, who would be a good transition player for Balotelli & Obinna to learn from.
For the love of all that is good, sell Quaresma while you still can and not lose your pants too, you’ve already lost your shirt.

Sell: One or two of your 10 (aging) defenders. I’d guess Samuel or Cordoba gets you something. Viera because he’s just too elderly a statesman because of injuries.
Out: Figo & Crespo. It’s not like you can sell 35+ year old attackers with 3 goals combined last year.

In: Deco & Carvalho from Chelsea (€12M combined). Robben (€25M, formerly of Chelsea via Real Madrid). Huntelaar (€18M, Chelsea probably would have bought him if Real Madrid didn’t throw money at every problem. At least Chelsea had a use for the players they bought instead of sitting them on the bench for Real Madrid’s Champions League squad because they could only choose one UEFA cup player) because what’s wrong with another guy that scores goals? Honestly, though, they should buy RVN or Luca Toni for cheaper here.

Total outlay: €45 million. You might be able to get €10M back from selling Viera & Samuel. Add another €10M for Quaresma (I mean, they paid twice as much for him, and I think they’d hope to get this much back for him), and it’s only a €25M expense for a team that can put up a slightly more creative challenge against the best of the best in the CL. Remember, they only lost on away goals to Manchester United. Mourinho is a brilliant (albeit boring) manager. Winning another Serie A might mean a lot in the long run of the history books, but winning the European trophy is what they need now before Juventus and Milan grow strong again. And they will. Cycles always swing.

Squad: 4-1-3-2

Ibrahimovic --- Huntelaar
Robben --- Deco --- Muntari
Cambiasso
Santon --- Zanetti --- Carvalho--- Maicon
Júlio César

Subs: Maxwell, Chivu, Cordoba, Stankovic, Mancini, Balotelli, Obinna