Felipe Melo - Is he the final piece in the Inter Milan tapestry?

Felipe Melo has made an instant impact at Inter Milan. Is he the final piece to complete Roberto Mancini’s jigsaw?

Is experienced Brazilian Felipe Melo the final, all important, piece in the delicate tapestry currently being woven at Inter Milan by coach Roberto Mancini? That thought inevitably crossed one’s mind as we watched Melo score the winner in Inter’s 1-0 defeat of Verona on Wednesday night.

That victory made it five out of five for Inter in Serie A, leaving them already 10 points clear of champions Juventus, nine clear of Napoli and seven ahead of AS Roma. The league season has just begun, the road ahead is long and winding but one thing already seems crystal clear. Namely that in Melo, Inter have found the “hard man” leader around whom Mancini can build a competitive team.

The point about Melo is not that he scored the winning goal on Wednesday night – although that obviously is a welcome plus – but it is that he provides imposing brawn, a footballing brain and a certain “bite” at the heart of this Mancini team. Football’s history is littered with the memories of “hard men” who proved fundamental to a winning cause.

For example, how much would Johan Cruyff’s “total football” Netherlands have won in the 1970s without the input of midfield colleague, the fearless Johan Neeskens? In more recent times, how much do the two Manchester clubs, United and City, owe to the respective efforts of Roy Keane and Yaya Toure?

To mention Melo in the exalted company of Neeskens, Keane and Toure (to name just three) might seem exaggerated. However, after just three Serie A games with his new club, he gives all the signs that he could become as important to Inter as that awesome trio were (still are in Toure’s case) to their teams.

Playing in central midfield, in front of the defence, Melo is in a classically influential position. Firstly, there is his “presence”. At six feet tall and well built, he does not pass unnoticed. Secondly, he clatters around to win ball. Thirdly, he is enough of a footballer to distribute that ball intelligently. If, after that, he can get up for a set piece to score the winning goal, then the “service” is truly complete.

Bought for just €4 million from Galatasaray right at the end of this summer’s transfer window (and after extensive negotiations), Melo would not have been everyone’s ideal choice. There were those who claimed that, at 32, his best football is long behind him.

Then, too, in three seasons in Italian football with Fiorentina and Juventus, his physical game seemed, at times, much more European than Brazilian. On top of that, fans worldwide remember him as the unfortunate Brazilian who not only scored an own goal in Brazil’s 2010 World Cup quarter-final 2-1 defeat by Holland, but who also got himself sent-off for stamping on Arjen Robben in that same game. In short, up at Appiano Gentile, not everyone was convinced.

Melo, however, made the ideal start, playing a vital role in Inter’s 1-0 derby win over rivals AC Milan in his club debut. When Milan brought on the redoubtable Mario Balotelli in the second-half, Melo’s response was to clatter into him almost immediately.

“I just had to clatter him, to thump into him…,” Melo confessed after the game.

It was a gesture that reminded one of the “welcome” that ex-Liverpool hard man Tommy Smith extended to Argentine ace Ossie Ardilles in a Swansea v Tottenham League Cup tie in 1978. Let them know that you are on the premises.

However, having scored his 57th minute winning goal on Wednesday night, this particular “hard man” did something that was not rough and tough at all. He ran across to the sideline where, under new San Siro seating arrangements players’ families are placed, to kiss his wife, Roberta.

But, then, this hard man is also an Athlete of Christ, that is a member of the Latin America-based movement which brings together different sports stars, united by their “love of Jesus Christ whom they recognise as their Lord and Saviour”. Other stars include Brazilian Felipe Anderson, Brazilian Hernanes and Italian defender Nicola Legrottaigle.

With God on their side and Melo on the pitch, who is going to stop Inter this season?