Sat in the cafe in front of the stunning art deco facade of Sao Paulo’s Pacaembu Stadium, a smile breaks across the face of Ze Elias as he recalls the May night in Paris when he and his Inter team-mates swept Lazio aside to win the 1998 UEFA Cup.
“For me, personally, it was the most important [trophy].”
Victory, of course, is always sweet. But when it comes in the face of adversity, the sense of fulfilment is greater. That tournament, for Ze Elias as an individual and for Inter as a team, had been a tale of reversals and redemption.
“The priority at the beginning of the year was the league; the team was made to win the league,” Ze Elias says. “So, in the games against Neuchatel Xamax and Strasbourg, they put out a second string.
“It was only when they realised that we could go on to win it that [Luigi Simoni] started playing the first team.”
That decision to prioritise Serie A benefitted Ze Elias, who was at that time only 21 and part of that second string. The UEFA Cup was his chance to force his way into contention for a place in the first team.
“At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t even in the reserves,” he says. “I was sitting in the stands, watching. So I kept training and training and my first break came against Neuchatel.”
Ze Elias’ breakthrough
It was an opportunity he grasped with both hands, scoring the second goal of the match to seal a comfortable 2-0 win away from home: “From then on, I started getting more chances to start games.”
“The campaign was fantastic because we managed to overturn some negative results. Against Lyon we turned the game, there in Lyon. Against Strasbourg, too, we had a few problems and managed to reverse the situation.”
In the second game against Strasbourg, in Milan, an illustrious trio of Javier Zanetti, Diego Simeone and Ronaldo all scored to overcome a 2-0 first-leg deficit.
That set up a showdown against Schalke, a replay of the previous year’s final, which Inter had lost.
“It was war. Marc Wilmots and I…” Ze Elias’ sentence tails off, but he bashes his clenched fists together and his point is clear.
“There were punches, there were kicks. There weren’t so many cameras at that time, so the game was a lot more intense.”
The Inter of the late 90s had a distinctly South American flavour to their squad, and in the semi-final against Spartak Moscow, Ze Elias was joined on the scoresheet by compatriot Ronaldo and the magnificent Ivan Zamorano, guaranteeing a 4-2…
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