Inter's Thrilling Chaos: Chivu Embraces the Challenge

Inter live on the edge – and Chivu is happy to dance there.

For the second straight Serie A home game, the champions fell 2-0 behind, this time to Udinese, replaying the chaos of their recent comeback against Napoli. Same script, same jeopardy, same wild energy. Inter are turning the San Siro into a weekly stress test.

Cristian Chivu, though, refused to panic. He almost welcomed the storm.

“These are our qualities and what we know how to do. We can score a lot of goals and keep a high level,” he told Sky Sport Italia, before admitting the opening spell had gone badly wrong. The first 25 minutes lacked bite, precision, the right “energy”. Udinese sensed it and pounced. Inter’s attitude invited trouble and they got exactly that.

Then the response came.

“We did well to react. We stayed in the game, didn’t want to lose, and I am pleased with that,” Chivu said. It was less a tactical lecture, more a statement of character. This team may wobble, but it refuses to fold.

Goals, goals, and more gaps

The numbers tell the story of a side built to attack and prepared to suffer. Four games, 14 goals scored – the most prolific frontline in Italy. In the same stretch, eight conceded. Inter don’t suffocate opponents. They open the game up, stretch it, and live with the consequences.

Chivu is not hiding behind any illusion of control. He called his Inter a work in progress and leaned into the idea that the chaos is partly by design. The aggressive, front-foot style drags bodies high up the pitch, leaves space behind, and invites counter-attacks. It’s the price of the football he wants.

“If I don't say I'm worried, I'm not a coach,” he admitted when asked about the defending. “But this is today's football, with the intensity we put in, we take some risks because we want to play this style of play, we bring a lot of men into possession and when we lose the ball we expose ourselves to risks.”

The key, for him, lies in what happens the second they lose it. He pointed to the counter-pressing on Nicolò Barella’s goal as the model: fast reaction, collective sprint, immediate pressure. Imperfect, but intentional.

“We’re not perfect, we don't even want to be and we have to keep working, because the season is long and there are things we need to work on.”

The goalkeeper debate returns

The chaos is not just on the pitch. It’s around the goalkeepers too.

Last season, a chunk of the Italian media circled around Yann Sommer, labelling him a weak link in a title-winning side. This year, the spotlight has swung to Josep “Pepo” Martinez. Every slip, every hesitation, is magnified.

Chivu has had enough of that narrative.

“Last year Sommer was the problem and you pointed it out immediately, now it's Pepo Martinez. I will defend him to the death, just like [Ivan] Provedel or others,” he snapped, making it clear he sees no crisis between the posts.

He pushed back hard at the idea that Inter have a “goalkeeper problem”, calling instead for a stop to the constant headlines about whoever wears the gloves.

“We don't have problems with goalkeepers. Last year you kept hammering on about Sommer and Pepo was wanted. Today it's Pepo because Ivan is wanted. Who is a great goalkeeper and will have his chance. But not out of pity, but because they deserve it. Everyone makes mistakes and so do I.”

Meritocracy, not melodrama. That was his message. Whoever plays, plays because they’ve earned it, not because the media demands a change.

Scudetto showdown in Rome

There is no time to breathe. Inter now walk straight into one of the season’s early defining nights: a trip to the Stadio Olimpico to face Gian Piero Gasperini’s Roma. Both sides sit perfect after four rounds. Both are scoring freely. Both are eyeing the Scudetto.

It feels big because it is big.

The build-up, though, is clouded by fitness worries. Hakan Calhanoglu is still a doubt with an adductor strain. John Stones is also a major concern after limping off around the hour mark. Chivu knows he could be stripped of key pieces just as the stakes rise.

“Against Roma it is an important match before the break also because then I will be left with three players,” he said, half-joking, half-resigned to the realities of international call-ups and injuries. “But we will continue like this, because this is the status of this group and we will try to improve along the way.”

Inter, then, head to Rome exactly as they are: thrilling, flawed, fearless, and fully aware that this high-wire act cannot go wrong too often. The question now is simple – can a team that lives on chaos carry that edge all the way through a title race?