Meeting of minds will test Ferrara

Ian Hawkey

• Last Updated: November 30. 2009 10:47PM UAE / November 30. 2009 6:47PM GMT

Ciro Ferrara, the head coach of Juventus, is a rookie in his job. He has fewer than 20 matches in Serie A under his belt as a manager, but has evidently studied up on the theory of what his trade – and indeed we journalists – like to call “mind games”.

Six days ahead of what looks his most important assignment yet, the fixture on which he will be most severely judged, Saturday’s meeting with Inter Milan, Ferrara put down a marker for whoever is chosen to officiate that contest.

Juventus have not been awarded a penalty for seven months, Ferrara noted after the weekend’s 2-0 defeat against Cagliari. He thinks they are overdue one.

At least that will have sounded like a psychological arrow to the ears of Jose Mourinho, who has some experience and indeed post-doctoral honours in the area of mind games.

Mourinho, the Inter coach, has been upping the ante for several days ahead of Juve-Inter, warning would-be match officials that Ferrara’s team can be excessively physical.

Listening to, and interpreting, all this jousting can be quite diverting. One might even imagine the Derby of Italy, as Juve-Inter clashes are known, was shaping up a decisive battle for the summit.

At this stage it is not. Eight points now separate Inter and Juve in the table, and the reigning champions stand seven points clear of second-placed Milan. Ferrara’s post-match comments were also designed to divert attention from disappointment.

While he felt Amauri had deserved a spot-kick at a time Juve still trailed by just the one goal, Ferrara was also exasperated by a second loss in five days, following the reverse against Bordeaux in the Champions League.

“On that night I was cross with the players,” he said. “For the Cagliari defeat, I am not. We had them pinned back for long periods and really lost to a wonder goal from Nene.” And, he had made clear, because of the referee.

The defeat was Juve’s third in the league so far, which is not the form of would-be champions, nor even of persistent challengers, and the growing feeling is that if anybody from Italy, Milan included, is to do better than Inter this season, it will have to be in Europe. Juve should still progress in the Champions League, despite the setback against Bordeaux, as should Milan. Inter may well do so too, although the way they were destroyed by Barcelona a week ago was a savage reminder of the Jekyll and Hyde character Inter have become.

They are the best team in Serie A consistently and by a handsome margin. In Europe they can be hideous.

One victory in the Champions League in their last nine European matches is a poor run by any standards, let alone Mourinho’s. He was under pressure after the Barcelona defeat – “he knows what is required of an Inter coach in Europe,” said Inter president Massimo Moratti – and emerged from the weekend with, at least, an even more enhanced domestic swagger.

“Suddenly I’m brilliant again,” shrugged Mourinho after Diego Milito’s penalty had secured the three points in a 1-0 victory against Fiorentina, “because I’ve won a match.”

With only Milan of the chasing quartet having won, the weekend’s games in Serie A turned out nicely for the champions. But Mourinho still appeared a little jumpy after a chastening week, in which he had heard and read some of the most sustained and biting criticism of his time so far in Italy.

He was sensitive to questions about Mario Balotelli, his sometimes troublesome teenage striker, who was left out of the first-team squad against Fiorentina. “That was my decision and my decision alone,” he said, deepening the mystery. “I have world champions like Patrick Vieira and Marco Materazzi on the bench, so he can also be in the stands.”

ihawkey@thenational.ae