How Beppe Marotta became Serie A’s Mister Wolfe

There are so many unforgettable characters in “Pulp Fiction”, but none are as cool as Harvey Keitel’s portrayal of Winston Wolfe. He’s the classic fixer, the person rich people or criminals call to clean up a messy situation because of their ability to think clearly under pressure and to efficiently get out of even the most complex problems.

While I don’t imagine Beppe Marotta has ever wore a tux to a party that is taking place early in the morning like when we are first introduced to mister Wolfe, Inter’s current executive director is now Calcio’s version of Mister Wolfe. After a very successful spell at Sampdoria, he was one of the architects of Juventus’ resurgence post Calciopoli and is now building a very strong foundation for Inter who are desperate to return to the glory days of the treble after a difficult stretch of years.

The season just started and we know Inter are notorious for falling apart at the worse possible time, but if you also look at how disorganized Juventus has appeared since his departure, there’s a case to be made this has been Marotta’s best summer ever when you factor Conte, Godin, Lukaku, Sensi, Barella’s arrivals coupled with Mauro Icardi leaving but not for Juventus.

To be fair Marotta inherited Inter right when they were about to get out of Financial Fair Play hell. His sporting director Piero Ausilio and his predecessors in the executive director role deserve a lot of credit for making significant plusvalenze on home grown players, which allowed Marotta to spend considerably more this summer.

Certainly, Antonio Conte wouldn’t have come to Inter until he had guarantees they would be able to spend significantly on the transfer market, but Marotta convinced him to join him at Inter after the two of them had a falling out at Juventus (Conte famously never mentioned him during his farewell from the bianconeri) because of disagreements on the transfer market.

Everyone remembers the famous quote on not being able to afford the restaurant that costs 100 euro with a 10 euro bill, but this summer Marotta broke Inter’s transfer record twice by signing first Niccolo’ Barella and later Romelu Lukaku, who had become like Moby Dick for Conte since he had tried to sign him both at Juventus and Chelsea. Inter also signed Diego Godin to a very expensive Bosman deal to complete a new version of the BBC but it turns out that so far the nerazzurri’s best addition came from Sassuolo.

While at Juventus, Marotta developed a great relationship with Sassuolo’s director Carnevali- they completed many deals which benefitted both teams on the pitch and financially. But with the way Stefano Sensi has played since he arrived at Inter, you can make a case Marotta saved the best deal with the neroverdi for his new club (just picture how good Sensi would look in Juventus midfield right now).

Certainly the incoming players have been impressive, but Marotta’s best work may have come with the Mauro Icardi situation. He set the tone right away at Conte’s introductory press conference, he stated that the Argentine striker as well as Radja Nainggolan would not be part of the project (he later on added Ivan Perisic to the list) and while many assumed Marotta would eventually have no choice but to send him to Juventus, who went so far as not assigning number 9 to keep it ready for Icardi.

Certainly, it would have been better to sell Mauro Icardi on a permanent sale, but Marotta was able to get him out of the league altogether while working on a deal that would give Icardi a significant financial incentive by staying at PSG since his contract with the French club would pay substantially more than what Inter would give him should he return. 

Marotta was able to shed Icardi, Perisic and most of Nainggolan’s significant wages by sending them off on loan. Juventus would have liked to be able to do the same with the likes of some of their unwanted veterans since now their payroll is very bloated at a time that they are also in the red on their balance sheet, it’s safe to say that Paratici and Nedved have struggled a bit in their first summer transfer window at Juventus without Marotta.

After his strong contributions to Juventus’ rebuild, Marotta is well on his way to doing the same at Inter- he’s now become Serie A’s mister Wolfe.

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