Inter gives a “gift” to Sassuolo: the Nerazzurri’s second defeat of the season extends the life of the Emilians.
It was all incredibly and ironically very predictable. After a season and in particular an absolutely disastrous return round, Sassuolo remembers that they are still a team and that they have some, albeit minimal, chances of playing an unexpected salvation. Obviously he does it against the team that, perhaps, most of all hopes for relegation to Serie B, that Inter who will close the championship in the season of the Second Star Scudetto with zero points won out of six available against the Emilian black-greens. Sassuolo Breathe awaiting the results of the direct competitors while Inter could use a tonic to recover after the hangover from last week’s Scudetto celebration.
It will have been the friendship between Marotta and Carnevali or the cabal that for a decade now has linked Inter and Sassuolo to a crossed destiny, made of unlikely results and blunder-black fools? There second defeat of the season for Inter who won the championship it arrives because Sassuolo finds itself forced to play for the first time in Reggio Emilia everything for everything. The hosts have their backs against the wall and have to react somehow. They do it by pulling out a performance of character, intensity and attention, exactly the three things that have been missing during a season which up until now has seen a team in disarray, first and foremost mentally. Here the survival instinct finally forces Ballardini’s men to play a game of orderto solidly orchestrate the defensive phase, to stay in the game until the last second, which is by no means a given for the team that has lost the most points from advantage situations in the entire championship.
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On the brink of the abyssthe moment arrives for the great performances of Doig, Laurienté and Pinamonti: the Scotsman is Dumfries’ nightmare and manages to combine great attention in coverage with an excellent offensive propensity on the wing while the two strikers they are tireless in pressing and in the rush to annoy Inter’s first approach. Good too Thorstvedt, the real added value of Sassuolo’s season, and the trio of Erlic-Kumbulla-Ferrari centre-backs. The three defenders they can resist without any particular problems to the Nerazzurri’s outings, eliminating the danger of Arnautovic, Lautaro and Frattesi. Excellent organization on Ballardini’s part, therefore, but also many individuals on the shields.
For its part, Inter he can’t find the mental strength rather than technique to react to Laurienté’s advantage and try to obtain personal revenge against the only team capable of tarnishing a practically perfect championship run. Inzaghi’s men do not lack the desire to avoid yet another defeat, as demonstrated by the data on ball possession, but they are still lacking lucidity, together with the hunger for victory, as it should be for a team that is already at coffee and coffee killing. The inclusion, from the first minute and during the match, of many second lines does the rest: Inter are already essentially on holiday.
Despite the total irrelevance of this evening’s defeat, it is interesting to analyze the signals that come from those who had anyway something to prove. Perhaps what will worry Inzaghi will be the need to find a new team in Dumfries with his mind already on packing, or the evanescence of Frattesi, which once again shows all its limitations in facing teams with such a low center of gravity. Not even Asllani’s match, net of two splendid verticalisations poorly exploited by his teammates, can be considered satisfactory: the Albanian he is too staid in his handling of the ball especially when pace and dribbling would be needed instead. Things went better for the mysterious object Buchanan: with a couple of nice shots on the left out the Canadian showed what it can offer to a team that suffered terribly this evening from the absence of dribblers. On the performance of Lautaro and Arnuatovic, however, better perhaps to draw a veil of compassion.