Calcio Debate: Should Inter Milan Sign Deco?

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EPL: Deco, Chelsea - Portsmouth (PA)

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• Deco

Winning the Champions League once is great, winning the Champions League twice is even greater. And when you win the most coveted club competition in the world twice in the space of just three years with two different teams, each time playing instrumental roles in your team’s success, it becomes the stuff of legends.

Between 2003 and 2006 Deco was one of the best midfielders in the world, a genuine candidate for the Ballon d'Or. While in 2003-2004 the Portuguese international in conjunction with Costinha led Porto to the most astonishing of European Cup conquests, for the following two seasons he played a key role in Barcelona's revival, winning La Liga in 2004-2005 and helping the Catalans to the domestic and European double in 2005-2006.

Since then, though, Deco has been almost willingly hell-bent on the most vicious of nosedives, becoming average at best. And although last season he attempted to resurrect himself at Premier League club Chelsea, after a first few excellent weeks faded into the doldrums and into the category of the unwanted at Stamford Bridge.

Quite a surprise then that Italian champions Inter are seemingly so keen to land the soon-to-be 32-year-old. As the joke goes, at his age Deco is young enough for AC Milan but it's Inter and not Milan who have been heavily linked with the player for several months now. And it must be desperately depressing that Inter are hunting an overused and past-his-prime player.

For one thing, Inter need a creative midfielder in their side. They might have the strongest defence in Serie A and in Zlatan Ibrahimovic have an intelligent striker who creates his own goals but it's been in the creative department of the midfield that the Nerazzurri have failed. Club president Massimo Moratti has acknowledged that Europe is their main priority next season and to beat the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United, they have to strengthen themselves in the creative department.

Deco at almost 32 is not the ideal candidate to spearhead Inter, but the problem is that there are not too many of the kind available in the transfer market. Kaka went to Real Madrid and would have never played for Inter anyway, Diego was snapped up by Juventus, Wesley Sneijder appears to be too costly and Rafael van der Vaart started more games on the bench than on the pitch in 2008-09.

Then there's the Jose Mourinho factor. The duo had worked wonders together at Porto, and Mourinho would surely know his old pupil better than most. The 46-year-old has a history of bringing out the best of his players even in the worst of times and Deco would be given the perfect chance and platform by Mourinho and Inter at the San Siro.

Yet doubts remain.

True, he did start last season's Premier League campaign in sensational fashion, scoring a 40-yard screamer against Portsmouth on the opening day and collected the Premier League Player of the Month award for August, before long the Portuguese had been relegated to the bench, ending the season with only 17 starts in the Premier League and 4 in the Champions League.

Moreover, Deco has a reputation of being a rotten apple in the dressing room, a Machiavellian evil of sorts who has the inclination to take his teammates down with him. It was precisely because of this that Barcelona's Pep Guardiola got rid of them in 2008 and at Inter where discipline and image are hugely significant Deco's idiosyncrasy won't go down well.

So should Inter sign Deco? No, as it would be a huge gamble. But then again, Inter have been paralyzed by the paucity of players in the still empty creative department and eventually will have to sign somebody. At times, something is better than nothing.

Subhankar Mondal, Goal.com