Serie A kicked off at the weekend but the biggest news happened off the pitch as Zlatan Ibrahimovic signed for AC Milan. Ben Lyttleton explains what this could mean for Italy's top flight.
Milan’s title price has already come in from 8.0 last week to 3.6.
When Laurent Blanc was reported to have turned down the the vacant coaching post at Inter Milan in order to replace Raymond Domenech as France coach, one French reporter explained his thinking: "Why take a job in which you can't do any better than your predecessor over a job where you can't do any worse?"
Aside from the sniping from Inter coach Rafa Benitez's predecessor Jose Mourinho, who has unhelpfully claimed that any trophy Inter win would be his as "it's still my Inter", already the Frenchman's comment has the ring of prescience to it. Benitez has had a wretched few days which began with Atletico Madrid beating his new side 2-0 in the European Super Cup and continued with rivals AC Milan signing former Inter forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic and then thumping Lecce 4-0 in their Serie A opener on Sunday.Inter's title price has already drifted from 2.04 to 2.14 and the team has not even started its league campaign yet: they get underway tonight at Bologna, who sacked coach Colomba over the weekend. Inter are 1.62 to win the game and join rivals Milan who are the early pace-setters of the season.
While Roma signed Adriano to boost their striking options and Juventus overhauled their playing squad (and management staff with a new sports director and coach) it's the signing of Ibrahimovic from Barcelona that has dominated the weekend news and could yet have a major impact on Serie A this season. Ibrahimovic, after all, is a player who has his critics but no-one else can claim to have topped the league table every season for the last seven years with four different clubs (Ajax, Juventus, Inter and Barcelona). If it was a surprise that he was allowed to leave Barcelona, one year after the club spent €50m on signing him, it was an even greater one that Milan, rivals of Inter and on a cost-cutting drive at the moment, stepped in. This is where credit is due to Adriano Galliani, Milan vice-president, who structured a loan deal for this season with the option to buy for €24m next summer. Milan were already 3-0 up at half-time over Lecce when Ibrahimovic was welcomed onto the San Siro pitch and ecstatic new coach Max Allgeri claimed his arrival inspired the players to perform better. Milan's title price has already come in from 8.0 last week to 3.6 - and that seems as much to do with the Zlatan factor than the Lecce result. The biggest danger for Allegri is that Milan, as happened to Inter under Mourinho, become too reliant on Ibrahimovic and teams work out a strategy to stop the Swede and therefore stop the team. Allegri should be too canny for that, though, and with Alex Pato and Ronaldinho, who both impressed against Lecce, set to play on either side of Ibrahimovic in a 4-3-3. Given that Milan may yet clinch a late deal to sign Robinho as well before tomorrow, goals should not be hard for this team to come by. "If you put a small, quick guy on him, Zlatan will flatten him," Ibrahimovic's former team-mate Marco Materazzi once said. "Put a big strong defender on him and he'll make him look silly with his array of tricks. Put two guys on him and he'll simply invent a brilliant pass out of nothing and find the open man." In Sweden, the debates continue about how someone so powerful can be so nimble and skilful. His physical trainer at first club Malmo, Jorgen Becke, who trained Sweden's Olympic sprinters, has claimed it's down to the muscle set-up in his back and abdomen, while his ex-coach Jonas Weirmola argued it's his low centre of gravity and "ankles of steel". Milan's latest swoop could make this a very competitive title race (it's worth mentioning that their other new face, Kevin-Prince Boateng, set up Pippo Inzaghi's late final goal on Sunday) but perhaps the most compelling Ibrahimovic bet for the season is for the Swede to finish top scorer in the league. That price is 6.8 and with Diego Milito 4.2 and a more attacking Samuel Eto'o 5.4, represents decent value given the quality of his suppliers.
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