Tottenham Hotspur have once again been picked as possible destination for Mauro Icardi. Which makes little sense, on several levels, but gives a chance to ponder at just what is going on.
It’s worth having a bit of background on Mauro Icardi when confronting the latest rumours about the player’s future. At Sampdoria, the young Icardi was drawn towards compatriot Maxi Lopez, and the pair spent time together away from football.
Both were from Argentina and Icardi spent time with Lopez and his family, even on holiday. However, things turned sour when Lopez’s wife Wanda Nara left him… and then started a relationship with Icardi, with few believing their claims about it being a new thing.
The worst part about the whole saga was the way Icardi and Nara appeared to use Lopez’s kids to get back at the footballer via social media. It was very much portrayed that Icardi was the daddy now and things got very distasteful indeed, with Lopez taking legal action to stop Nara speaking about the couple’s children publicly.
She didn’t stop, and was subsequently fined by an Argentine court.
Once at Inter Milan, Icardi took a season or so to get settled, but once he started performing, he wanted a new contract. It was played out via the media, and the player finally got his way.
The Argentine was then named the new club captain, making it look like it was very much part of the deal. Icardi doesn’t exactly stand out as captain material at this stage in his career, but he very much wanted to be.
By October, Icardi’s credentials as captain were already called into question. Going on a poor goalscoring run, Icardi used a goal against Bologna to tell the media it wasn’t his fault.
Icardi said he was doing well when he got the chances, with the inference being his teammates weren’t providing the chances. Roberto Mancini dropped his captain.
Welcomed back soon afterwards, Icardi finished the season on 16 Serie A goals. Amid the usual rumours about his future, Icardi kept on saying that he wanted to stay at Inter and lead them to a trophy as captain.
It sounded good, but given we wouldn’t trust Icardi as far as we could throw him… it was probably pretty hollow. The right words for the wrong reasons.
Last October, Icardi dumped his agent and decided to get a new one. Unsurprisingly for this soap opera, the new agent was Wanda Nara, who by then was his wife.
Also unsurprisingly, within a year it’s all looking a little over the top. On Sunday morning, Nara took to Twitter to simply tweet Calciomercato.
— Wanda_Icardi (@wandaicardi) July 10, 2016
That means ‘football market’ and is what Italians refer to this time of the year as. The clear inference being a transfer is possible.
Then Nara retweeted a journalist who said it would be a big mistake for Inter to sell Icardi, and he’d be hard to replace.
Calciomercato, an Italian website, contacted Nara and managed to get some quotes: “From what I’m understanding, Inter is selling Mauro Icardi. There are many clubs interested. We will assess the situation with the utmost respect for all.
“Mauro is very sorry to leave Inter, but we understand the economic situation of the club and they apparently cannot keep Icardi. There is no release clause and we hope Inter do not ask for too big figures, but consistent with his contract.”
Calciomercato went on to say that Inter are not very keen on giving Icardi a renewal a year after the last one. Which is the crux in all of this, with Nara not being as cunning as she probably thinks.
The play is so transparent it’s almost embarrassing, but in the Icardi household they’re probably seeing it as a work of genius which only they could come up with.
Tottenham are linked once again. But even without reading the above, fans would surely think it makes no sense, given Vincent Janssen is on a jet plane flying to London. Juventus, Atletico Madrid and PSG are also linked, and there’s talk of €40m offers.
Inter have to decide what to do, they’ve been called out publicly by Nara, but probably won’t care that much given how easily most will see through it.
But it’s not hard to believe that Inter are growing tired of their captain. If someone did put a big offer in then there surely comes a point that Inter feel the circus should now move on.
