![]() He set Denzel Dumfries and Thuram through for a two-v-two that led to the second goal - “Lautaro’s very easy to play with,” Thuram said - and then won a penalty at 2-1 just as Pioli made a triple change hoping to find an equaliser. ![]() The Argentinian was devastating all the same. It didn’t matter that Martinez failed to score. It didn’t matter that Dzeko, Milan’s long-time tormentor, has left for Turkey’s Fenerbahce. In the Super Cup in January, Inter were 2-0 up early on, as they were in the first leg of May’s Champions League semi-final, and as they were, again, on Saturday. While Milan coach Stefano Pioli felt his team were in the game until Mkhitaryan got his second goal of the evening to make it 3-1 on 69 minutes, it did feel like deja vu. “(Their interest) always stayed with me.” “I should have come here two years ago,” Thuram said, referencing the knee injury he suffered with Gladbach that thwarted an earlier switch to Inter. He ran Malick Thiaw ragged and, after playing a role in Inter’s opener, chased down a lost cause and curled in an early contender for goal of the season in Serie A. They let Milan have the ball, then looked to hit them by releasing Thuram in the channel. Inter took full advantage of Fikayo Tomori’s suspension. “(France manager Didier) Deschamps was very complimentary about him,” said Inzaghi, who played against Marcus’ father, Lilian, the World Cup-winning centre-back. Then on international duty, as a substitute for the injured Olivier Giroud, he scored his first goal for France against the Republic of Ireland. The 26-year-old Thuram had already made a statement against Fiorentina, showing fine aerial prowess to score his first goal in Serie A and great awareness in setting up another for Martinez. In the end, they offered more money, maybe already aware Lukaku wasn’t serious about making last season’s loan return from Chelsea permanent. Marcus Thuram was close to joining Milan on a free transfer from Germany’s Borussia Monchengladbach in the summer only to suddenly pivot to Inter who, in fairness, held an historic interest having twice already tried to sign him. Instead, they picked up where they left off this season and in this rivalry. As a result, some thought Inter would be tired for the derby, particularly with Lautaro Martinez flying back from playing for Argentina in Bolivia on Tuesday night. They provide the core of Spalletti’s Italy side at a time when no Milan or Juventus players figured in his first game in charge just over a week ago. They have blown teams away - Inter went into this month’s first international break of the season with a perfect record, for the first time since 1966 they won their opening three games without conceding, and a 4-0 trouncing of last year’s Europa Conference League finalists Fiorentina preceded this humbling of the neighbours. It has given Inter a confidence that sets them on another level to anybody else in Italy at the moment. ![]() ![]() They were disappointed not because they lost but because they played well enough to beat a team as good as Guardiola’s City. Inzaghi and his players returned home from Turkey with palpable regrets. With every passing game, that defeat in Istanbul appears in retrospect to have had a transformative effect. “Up until three games ago, you were saying Inter were worse off because of the players that had been lost,” he said. “Only the other day, I was told it had never happened before. “It was the show of force I wanted,” Inzaghi said. And then when the game began, not for the first time, a certain Henrikh Mkhitaryan made Milan look silly.Ī 5-1 defeat was the heaviest Milan have suffered in the derby in nearly half a century (since 1974).Ī chorus of “Milanista chiacchierone, quanta fantasia hai” reverberated under the red girders of the clubs’ hallowed ground - a lyric about the loudmouth Milan fan and his wild imagination who, all of sudden, was being brought back down to reality by an unprecedented fifth straight defeat in this fixture. The palms of Inter coach Simone Inzaghi offer a different reading.Īfter all, he has won four in two years but in the lore of this rivalry, Milan’s hardcore wished to overlook them and remind their ‘cousins’ of the seven Champions League trophies back at the club’s office in the Portello neighbourhood of the city they share and, more pointedly, the one Inter didn’t bring back from Istanbul at the end of last season.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |