Inter won three fundamental points against an anonymous Benfica, also thanks to an “everything, everywhere, all at once” Mkhitaryan.
If the match between Inter and Benfica last spring was worth access to the semi-final of the Champions League, this evening’s match already had almost an in-or-out flavor for two teams already condemned to win given the surprising results of Real Sociedad and Salzburg . Luckily for the Nerazzurri, Marcus Thuram will take care of it, the first European goal with the Milanese club, to ensure three fundamental points in a balanced group that sees the top seeded Benfica with half a foot out of the European competition already on the second day. But if the intensity of today’s match was reminiscent of that of the double clash in April, the only goal scored by the Frenchman testifies to the fact that the true protagonists of the match were the incredible finishing errors of Lautaro and his teammates, who actively risk not win the match, not due to the merits of an absolutely anonymous Benfica, but due to the enormous rate of inaccuracy in the scoring phase but also (and above all) in the finishing phase of the hosts. However, the victory is absolutely deserved for Inter who, overall, confirm themselves as a mature and comfortable team on the nights that count, those of the top European competition;
Inzaghi wins the match in midfield, perfectly exploiting the tactical and numerical advantage that comes from the comparison between his starting players Barella-Mkhitaryan-Calhanoglu and Benfica’s midfielder. The performance of the three midfielders is the best since the start of the season, for the way in which they qualitatively and quantitatively combine the interdiction phase with the construction phase: Barella finds himself after a series of low-cabotage matches, proving to be the loose cannon that blows up the Portuguese’s scoring while Calhanoglu today plays the match that sublimates his new tactical identity and becomes essential for the quality in managing the ball in front of the defense and for the enormous filtering work with which he cancels out whoever between Neres and Rafa Silva acts on the Portuguese midfielder. The defense also performed well thanks to the leadership of Acerbi, the totality of Benjamin Pavard’s game but above all the exceptional game of Alessandro Bastoni which is more than ever the litmus test of Inter’s performances and results. The best in the field is, it goes without saying, the Armenian who goes like a train: if his game were a film it would certainly be the one that recently won the Oscar for best film and which fits perfectly to summarize in a few lines yet another excellent performance from a player who with its totality it proves decisive for overcoming Benfica’s first line of pressing and for the ability to immediately reverse the inertia of the action and transform defense into attack with lightning-fast precision. Surprisingly however, UEFA snubbed him and awarded the MVP award to Lautaro Martinez;
Already, Lautaro Martinez. Far from saying that his performance was insufficient, the Nerazzurri captain could have won, even thanks to this match alone, the top scorers’ rankings for this edition of the Champions League and if Inter don’t close out a match first that remains until the last in the balance is mainly due to his demerits. In reality, the Argentine’s match perfectly symbolizes the only flaw in an almost perfect match which concerns not only him but the entire team, from Calhanoglu on up. Inter made too many mistakes in the finishing and execution phases, with a huge number of wrong decisions, missed final passes, ineffective conclusions and teammates not served. As mentioned, this concerns the whole team, from Dumfries to Barella via Dimarco himself, but finds a plastic dimension in Lautaro’s errors. The poor quality of the decisions in the final phase of the action led Inter to risk not winning an absolutely dominated match, meaning that, when the team needed a slower and more controlled rhythm, the search for the second goal was necessary to avoid unpleasant surprises. Inzaghi will necessarily have to work on these two aspects. In the meantime, some will say that Lautaro has paid the price for Saturday night’s poker against Salernitana but, looking at the glass half full, it remains a match of enormous sacrifice and struggle, which confirms the new collectivist dimension of the Inter captain;
Schmidt loses the match right from the kick-off, deploying an extremely light midfielder and giving up the offensive reference represented by the former Fiorentina player Cabral or the Croatian Musa. The first choice, as mentioned, hands the match into the hands of Barella and his associates who, after a very brief initial skirmish, soon become masters of the field; the choice to rely on two boys like Neves and Kokcu turns out to be wrong due to the pair’s inexperience but above all due to their inability to filter the central penetrations of the Nerazzurri midfielders, a gap that is not filled even by a level setting. The disappointment is above all for the young Turk, protagonist with Feyenoord last season, who had a terrible impact in the Champions League but who has plenty of time to make up for it. The second decision to deprive themselves of an offensive point of reference instead deprives Benfica of those centimeters that would have been very useful in opening up space for the enormous quality of the Portuguese attacking midfield, where Di Maria is unusually subdued. The best on the pitch for the Portuguese team are certainly captain Otamendi, the main responsible (together with Lautaro) for the failed defeat of the red and whites, is the Dane Aurnes. The 27-year-old is called upon to do a bit of everything and he does it reasonably well, alternating his work as a centre-forward with that of a free roamer in front of and behind the defence, showing a completeness that would be more than useful to some local clubs. Tips for shopping;
In short, the match was pleasant and intense, with a few goals fewer than expected and with a level of physicality and unexpected tackles on the cusp. Above all, the Portuguese try to make up for their physical inferiority with an impetuosity in hand-to-hand combat which is easily supported by the poor management of the match director Makkelie who, among the many errors, fails to see two decisive cards for Neres and Otamendi. However, San Siro’s support for the home team’s match deserved applause, accompanied for the entire 90′ by an incessant amount of choirs. The hope is that the Nerazzurri management will not forget evenings like these when they have to make the final decision on the capacity of the new stadium.