Two incidents, two very different matches one in Italy and one in Portugal, involving Alessandro Bastoni and Vinicius Junior.
One good lesson that modern football can no longer afford to ignore.
Last week, Alessandro Bastoni exaggerated a fall in the Inter 3-2 Juventus. This lead to a red card for a Pierre Kalulu and media attacks that cancelled out almost everything else.
Including the fact that Inter today is 18 points ahead of Juventus in Serie A with 64 points to their rivals’ 46.
The amazing football that Inter played throughout the season was buried under the noise. Just because of this event.
Just a few days later, a Champions League match between Benfica and Real Madrid was stopped.
This after Vinícius Júnior reported to referee that Benfica’s Gianluca Prestianni allegedly racially abused him when covering his mouth.
Kylian Mbappe witnessed it as well and said publicly that he heard it during the match. UEFA launched an immediate investigation and temporarily suspended Gianluca Prestianni.
He will now miss the second match at the Bernabéu.
The investigation will continue and while Prestianni has denied using racist language, he acknowledged using homophobic words which UEFA’s disciplinary code treats with severity.
What both incidents have in common: a failure of communication standards, ethical conduct, or both.
And in each case, the cost to the club, its reputation, and its supporters was disproportionately high relative to what happened on the field.
That is no longer just a sporting problem. It is a governance problem.
Beyond Alessandro Bastoni & Vinicius Junior – Running a Football Club In 2026 Is Risk Management
LISBON, PORTUGAL – FEBRUARY 17: Vinicius Junior of Real Madrid reacts and gestures during the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 League Knockout Play-off First Leg match between SL Benfica and Real Madrid C.F. at Estadio do SL Benfica on February 17, 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
Let’s say what many hesitate to: running a top-tier football club today is not just a sporting operation.
It is the management of a global brand, a media presence, a community of millions (accroding to several sources Inter Milan has over 55 million followers).
Futhermore, it is increasingly, a responsibility to investors who expect not just results on the pitch, but conduct off it.
Inter Milan is majority-owned by Canadian investment fund Brookfield who own Oaktree. This is a key factor as it is the operating reality of modern elite football.
When a player exaggerates a fall and earns a red card for an opponent in a high-profile derby, it is not just the ultras who notice.
It is the board, the institutional stakeholders and the global media machine that will finecomb the incident in ways that no press office can fully manage.
This means that the role of the modern head coach has changed for ever. A coach is no longer only responsible for tactics, fitness, and selection.
A coach is, in every meaningful sense, a Chief Culture Officer. The values they bring to the field, the standards they enforce, the communication protocols they instill in their players, these are now core business functions, not just good to have elements.
The Mouth-Covering Problem: A Symptom of a Deeper Crisis
LISBON, PORTUGAL – FEBRUARY 17: Vinicius Junior of Real Madrid reacts during the UEFA Champions League 2025/26 League Knockout Play-off First Leg match between SL Benfica and Real Madrid C.F. at Estadio do SL Benfica on February 17, 2026 in Lisbon, Portugal. (Photo by Angel Martinez/Getty Images)
There is something deeply telling about the fact that both incidents centre, in different ways, on hiding.
Prestianni covered his mouth with his shirt to say what he said to Vinicius Junior.
Players across football now routinely cover their mouths when talking to teammates and coaches, because the of awareness that cameras are everywhere and lip-readers exist. Coaches do the same.
The technology meant to raise standards has instead, in some parts of the game, created a culture of more sophisticated misleading.
That is precisely backwards. The purpose of transparency is not to incentivise better hiding. It is to incentivise better behaviour.
VAR reviews millimetre offsides, often taking a way the beauty of football and even of mistakes. Microphones capture bench conversations.
Every trick, every exaggerated fall, every covered mouth is watched and recorded, reviewed, and shared globally within seconds.
And yet players and coaches still have not learned that old rules do not apply. And the clubs that understand this earliest will be the ones that suffer the fewest reputational crises.
After Alessandro Bastoni & Vinicius Junior: What Coaches Owe Their Players & Their Clubs
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – JUNE 20: Cristian Chivu, Head Coach of FC Internazionale Milano attends a press conference ahead of the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 match between FC Internazionale Milano and Urawa Red Diamonds at Virginia Mason Athletic Center on June 20, 2025 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
Sport is passion. Competition produces intensity. Fans will scream players will play intensely, and moments of misplaced emotion, are difficult to remove from the game we love.
No one is asking football to become polite. But there is a line between passionate competition and the failure to uphold basic standards of human behavior.
And the person most responsible for where that line is drawn, in any team, is the head coach. Coaches have always known that they are building culture, not just selecting formations.
But in the current environment, that responsibility has expanded enormously. A head coach must now ensure that:
- Players understand that their conduct is under observation at all times. And that the standard expected of them reflects not just the club. But also the shareholders, the partners, the fanbase, and the sport itself.
- Communication. This includes what is said in moments of conflict on the pitch. And it is treated as a matter of professional conduct, not personal expression. The mouth you cover is still your mouth. The words you say are still your words.
- Accountability is modelled from the top. When Alessandro Bastoni apologised for exaggerating his fall and celebrating the red card, that was the right response. But it reflected a culture that Inter have built around honesty and resilience. That culture does not emerge by accident. It is built, day after day. In the training ground, in team meetings, in the way management speaks when things go wrong.
The Inter Milan Model: Absorb, Correct, Move Forward
UDINE, ITALY – SEPTEMBER 18: Giuseppe Marotta, CEO for sport at FC Internazionale looks on prior to the Serie A match between Udinese Calcio and FC Internazionale at Dacia Arena on September 18, 2022 in Udine, Italy. (Photo by Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
What Inter have demonstrated this season, and what their lead at the top of Serie A reflects is not just technical excellence. It is organisational maturity.
When Bastoni made his mistake, he apologised. The club did not spiral. The media cycle moved on. Inter kept winning.
That is not an accident. That is a culture that has been deliberately constructed around the principle that individual incidents do not define a team — how a team responds to them does.
This is the model that every club with serious institutional ambitions should be studying. Not because perfection is achievable, it is not.
But because the capacity to absorb setbacks without losing structural integrity is the most valuable asset any organisation, sporting or otherwise, can possess.
In a world where the pitch is always watched, where the dugout is always filmed, where every word covered by a shirt is still a word that may find its way to a disciplinary hearing — the teams that will win are not just the ones with the best players.
They are the ones with the best culture. On and off the pitch.
After Alessandro Bastoni & Vinicius Junior – The Standard Is Non-Negotiable
Inter Milan’s Argentinian defender Javier Zanetti greets fans after the Italian seria A football match Inter Milan vs Lazio, on May 10, 2014, in San Siro Stadium In Milan. Javier Zanetti celebrates his last match at the San Siro stadium after he announced his retirement at the end of this season. AFP PHOTO / OLIVIER MORIN (Photo credit should read OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images)
Football at the highest level is, today, played in a fishbowl. Technology has made that permanent and irreversible. The response cannot be better hiding, it must be higher standards.
Coaches, clubs, investors, and fans all have a role in building those standards.
The coach who covers his mouth to hide tactics is doing something entirely different from the player who covers his mouth to hide a slur, but both are operating in an environment where the expectation of transparency is now structural, not optional.
Inter deserves its 10-point lead on the second placed, AC Milan. These 10 points are the results of a system that works: technically, tactically, and culturally.
As the world prepares to celebrate football on its grandest stage in 2026 in the US, Canada, and Mexico, that system is the one that everyone should follow.
The pitch is being watched. Play accordingly.
By: Andrea Zanon