Inter did theirs too, 1-0 against Porto and in the second leg they will be able to play as they do best, waiting for the opponent to restart in the open field. It’s still too early to tell, but let’s say it anyway: in the end the poorest of the circus could make the coup, and bring three teams to the quarter-finals of the Champions League as was the case in the golden age of our football. Milan have already shown that they are stronger than Tottenham, Napoli are a marvel and Inter shouldn’t be misled by the fact that they only scored at the end with Porto reduced to ten men.
In reality, even if it ended goalless, it left us with positive sensations, because Inter in Europe are above all an away team, as they also demonstrated last year with Liverpool and this year with Barcelona. Furthermore Inzaghi can smile, because in this evening of light and shadow he has found his center forward, the stone-breaker Romelu Lukaku, who has his unequivocal stamp on this victory. He suffered, it’s true, and he even risked going behind on two or three occasions, but a match in football is made up of many things, and it also takes cynicism, coolness, determination. Inzaghi is a man of cups, we’ve always said it, and with the wonder of Napoli still in his eyes, we really seem to understand that this time Italy has good cards to play.
The Port of Surprises
On paper, however, Porto is a tough nut to crack that shouldn’t be underestimated, also recalling some unpleasant precedents with Italian teams (in 2021 he eliminated Juve and in last season’s Champions League Milan never managed to beat him, one draw and one defeat). He reached the round of 16 winning his group in a rather surprising way after throwing out Simeone’s Atletico Madrid in the last fiery match at the Estadio do Dragao, despite a handicap start, with zero points in two games, overwhelmed at home even from the modest Bruges for 4-0. In Europe, since that debacle, it has only won. And now shows up at the Meazza with a good resume to show of eleven consecutive victories, including a Supercoppa di Lega just added to the bulletin board. Sergio Conceicao, Inzaghi’s former team-mate in Lazio, has modeled a solid and organized team which thanks to the teamwork works in both phases, however preferring to sink between the opposing lines. His preferred game scheme is a 4-4-2 with more offensive than conservative ambitions, capable of creating many goal chances. The spearhead of his attack is Mehdi Taremi, Iranian, born in 1992, who has already scored twenty goals this season, five of which in the Champions League in the five matches played so far. But we must also pay close attention to the insertions of his midfielders, Otavio, Eustaquio and Galen.
The problem for Conceicao is that he is forced to show up for these appointments with half the team coming and going from the infirmary, from Evanilson to Veron and Cardoso, as well as two important elements in midfield such as Otavio and Galen who are not in top condition. His weaknesses are his defensive strength that is not always excellent when attacked on the counterattack, too many turnovers (third in the Champions League standings) and a certain lack of concreteness forward with respect to all the chances he manages to create. He’s a tough opponent, but within Inter’s reach. Inzaghi fields the best formation, with Dzeko in the end preferred to Lukaku and Mkhitaryan to Brozovic.
A few flashes and a little boredom
It starts at an accelerated pace and Inter immediately shows its intentions: they stretch well forward, flee Darmian and put in the center, Di Marco’s volley countered by Pepe, an old gladiator on the threshold of 40 still on the breach. After the initial blaze, the Nerazzurri retreated back to look for empty spaces in front to strike. It’s the Inzaghi system, and it seems to pay off immediately and in the 12th minute on a restart Lautaro heads high from a good positione, almost free in the center of the area. Five minutes later a dangerous free-kick from Chalanoglu and a Porto defender saves for a corner, anticipating Toro. From the corner, the ball went to the Turkish midfielder again who, from a tight angle, let off an authentic arrow: Diogo Costa flew to deflect the shot. In the 26th minute Porto’s first shot arrived, a great blow from outside the area by Grujic, which however ended high over the crossbar.
At half an hour Lautaro Martinez in defender version unravels a dangerous melee in the area. The initial flash had a bit of a delusion, but it’s not a good match. Inter seem to be slyly waiting for the right moment to strike, and the impression is actually that it seems to be able to do it at any moment. Except that perhaps he exaggerates and now leaves the ball in the hands of Porto, even a little too much, and so he ends up risking a really big one, pardoned by Galen who sends Onana’s rebuttal on Grujic’s almost sure shot wide into an empty net , served by a back-heel from Taremi. On Inter’s reply, Darmian, touched by Galen in the area, claims the penalty in vain: Jovanovic goes to review the action and signals that we can continue. In the final minutes Inter returned to the front and went very close to the opening goal: Di Marco’s cross, Bastoni headed in from close range and Diogo Costa miraculously instinctively rejected by extending his arm in the direction of the ball. He probably doesn’t even know how he did it.
Lukaku is back
The second half seems to start with another music. There is Lukaku who takes off his bib and is about to enter. And this time Inter really seem to want to speed things up. He positions himself in Porto’s half of the field, pressuring his opponents and in the 7th minute Barella with a poisonous diagonal almost scores with the ball going out a few centimeters from the post. Porto responded on the counterattack, and Taremi engaged Onana with a non-powerful but angled shot. And two minutes later, the Inter goalkeeper was simply fabulous first on Zaildiu and then on Taremi from the ground.
Porto confirms that they are a team capable of wasting a lot of what they create. But those wasted opportunities scared Inter, who preferred to return to the first-half scheme, presiding over their own half to wait for the Lusitanians and hit a throw-in. And the idea seems to work. First Mkhitaryan extends the pass to Lautaro too much, forgetting about Barella completely free on the edge of the area with empty spaces in front of him. Then Lukaku, who took over from Dzeko, serves Barella from the chest, who from the edge of the area lets off a little more fireball over the crossbar. The Belgian center forward still needs an excellent ball just to push Lautaro into the net, who doesn’t get there by inches. Now Inter are dominating: Brozovic tries too, deflected shot for a corner.
Otavio also thinks about giving Inter a hand: already booked, he intervenes sprawlingly on Chalanoglu, getting his second yellow card. I bring in ten from the 77th minute. now it becomes a siege at the door of Diogo Costa. Conceicao removes his most dangerous striker, Taremi for a defender, Wendell, lining up five behind. Great scrums in the area and waves from outside, like that of Barella in the 84th minute, who grazes the post. The goal is in the air. Lukaku takes care of it, who entered the match very well: first he hit the post with his head, then he took the ball back and bagged it. One to zero in the 85th minute. But that’s not enough for Inter. Again the Belgian in the scrum from close range commits Diogo Costa. In the end it closes like this with the signature of Romelu. He’s finally back for real.