Walter Mazzarri is not long for the manager's post at Inter Milan. He knows that, his boss Erick Thohir knows that, the fans know that, anyone who pays much attention to Inter at all knows that. This season's performances have fallen well short of expectations, and this weekend's self-destructive loss to Parma only cemented the reality of what's to come.
Most of the rumors on who might replace Mazzarri at the San Siro have focused on big-name Italian managers, the likes of Roberto Mancini, Luciano Spalletti, and Inter's former star goalkeeper Walter Zenga. Now, though, Italian news outlet Repubblica is adding a very surprising new name to Thohir's wishlist: current Everton manager Roberto Martinez.
Why it makes sense
One of the big issues in Italian football is that its clubs tend to get stuck inside rigidly defined boxes that keep them spinning around in mediocrity. There's been a lack of creativity in the thinking and decision making among football clubs in the nation, leading to the same uninspiring group of managers getting job after job, going from mediocre results to poor results to a new employer seemingly every six months.
As an outsider to the whole mess, though, Thohir has so far proved resistant to falling in to the same old ruts as his peers. While not everything he's tried since leading the group that bought Inter a year ago has worked, he's at least expressed a willingness to try things most other Italian clubs would never consider. Martinez certainly represents another step in that direction, as the 41-year-old Spaniard's relative youth and lack of "big club experience" would normally have never gotten him consideration for the Inter job, especially given his lack of experience with Italian football.
Given the success that Martinez has had with limited resources in the past, he could be the exact breath of fresh air that Inter needs to get pulled out of the doldrums the club has been in since Jose Mourinho departed. The prospect of working with some of the talent that Inter has assembled in the last few years could also be awfully tempting for Martinez, who has rarely had significant amounts of real talent to lead in his managerial career.
Why it doesn't make sense
The biggest issue is that, while Everton haven't enjoyed as good a season so far this year as they did in their first year with Martinez at the helm, prying the Spaniard away from Merseyside won't be easy. After years of struggling and limping along at Wigan, he's finally been given the chance to run a project the way he wants to, and abandoning that after just over a year won't be easy for him to do, not to mention the fact that Everton likely won't be willing to let him go without one hell of a fight.
There's also a financial hangup for Inter; firing Mazzarri and paying out his contract would be a bad enough look for the Financial Fair Play investigation they're under, but buying out and paying another likely high-priced manager would only make things look a lot worse. Then add in the costs of the transfer activity likely to come, as Martinez runs a much different system than Mazzarri, and the FFP impact gets heavier and heavier.
Plus, while the full extent of this is often overblown by Italian fans, managing in Serie A is a much different beast than managing in the English Premier League. Especially at a club like Inter, there will be expectations and pressures of a degree that Martinez has never experienced before. Success is praised, but failures are examined, magnified, and vilified to an incredible extent. Is that something Martinez will want to deal with?
Likelihood it happens
This feels like a toss up. Being wanted by a club like Inter, with a wealthy owner like Thohir at your back, would certainly be tempting for a manager who's been working hard for success like Martinez. But to abandon his project and step into a situation as volatile as that makes it a tricky proposition at best. We're rating the likelihood of this one at 3 out of 10.