João Mario’s transfer from Inter Milan to West Ham United is big news in Portugal today. Even though the local newspapers don’t have any exclusive information on the move, they all publish their own take on it.
The most interesting story comes from O Jogo, who gathered the opinion from several journalists and football-related people, Portuguese and Italian, to know why things haven’t worked out for the player in Serie A as expected.
Most of the opinions pointed out the ‘tactical and defensive’ football played in the country as the reason why João Mário could never repeat the great form he had shown for Sporting.
Mirko Graziano from Gazzetta Dello Sport was the first to talk, claiming that “arriving with a price-tag of over €40m didn’t help him. He showed difficulties in dealing with criticism”. And added that “Italian football is very physical and João Mário is a delicate player, with a refined football. I’d say he’s the perfect player to play in Spain.”
Hmm, not the best endorsement for West Ham.
Former Napoli and Udinese player José Luís Vidigal also had his say: “Maybe the pressure was less if he had cost half of what he cost. In Italy, criticism affects the choices of managers greatly.
“At Inter, he was forced to do tactical behaviour that he was not used to, with less offensive freedom.”
Portuguese manager Leonel Pontes pointed out “physical and defensive Italian football” was the main reason for the failure, adding that a “lack of aggressiveness” hasn’t helped the player either. But he concluded saying that the midfielder could have succeeded “in a team of more offensive inclinations, which also exist in Italy, to make use of his technical qualities.”
So David Moyes needs to play attacking football at West Ham, then.
Now it’s interesting how Italian football being too tactical, physical and defensive kept showing up. Maybe that’s why one of the journalists suggested La Liga as the perfect place for João Mário, but the player is now set to find an even more competitive football when joining the Premier League. We hope someone told him that.
