Internazionale – Juventus: Conte’s loss – Inzaghi’s win

Internazionale lost three of their biggest stars in the summer after winning the scudetto. Achraf Hakimi joined the Ligue 1 and Champions League powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain in order to fill their shaky right-back position, while Romelu Lukaku returned to his former club Chelsea, where he failed to make it in his early career. The biggest loss of them all appeared to be Antonio Conte though, who is known for both silverware and questionable requests from his club’s board. The latter led to him terminating his contract mutually with the club: he didn’t accept that Inter had to sell some of its star power in order to maintain financial stability.

Inter collected around €200 million in transfer fees from the players sold and brought in Edin Dzeko, Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Joaquin Correa, Denzel Dumfries and Matteo Darmian, spending only around €20 million. They appointed Simone Inzaghi, who had a decent four-season spell at Lazio, averaging nearly 1.8 points per game.

Having spent as good a summer as could be expected for a club that lost the aforementioned names, Inter Milan’s chances of winning back-to-back scudettos didn’t seem that convincing at the start of the season, with Massimiliano Allegri returning to his former club Juventus, where he took them to six straight Serie A titles and reached the Champions League Final in 2015. With AC Milan recovering, Maurizio Sarri’s arrival at Lazio, Jose Mourinho’s return to Italian soil to manage AS Roma and the presence of Gian Piero Gasperini’s free-scoring Atalanta only providing more competition, Inter have a lot to deal with.

Already leading Serie A by one point with a game in hand, Inter came into the Supercoppa Italiana final with confidence. With Juventus not looking too different from their performances under Sarri and Andrea Pirlo, Inter stepped up as favourites.

Finding Conte’s Inter using the same formation as he used in his time at Lazio, Inzaghi has made no changes to the team’s formation. He named his ideal line-up ahead of the match-up, while Juventus struggled with Matthijs de Ligt’s and Juan Cuadrado’s suspensions, and their star boy Federico Chiesa is out for the season having injured his anterior cruciate ligament. With Leonardo Bonucci also not fit enough to play, Daniele Rugani made only his seventh start this season, and Mattia De Sciglio filled in for Cuadrado on the right flank. With Dejan Kulusevski lining up alongside Alvaro Morata, Weston McKennie came in for Chiesa, turning Juve’s 4-4-2 into an asymmetric 4-3-3.

Despite Juventus scoring the first goal from a deflected Morata cross, finding midfielder McKennie’s head in the 25th minute, Inter took control of the game. Even unable to create a lot, they still looked more convincing than the opposition, seeming like they had more to offer.

When building from the back against Juventus’ flat 4-4-2-shaped press, Inter saw their 3-5-2 transform into an asymmetric 4-3-3. Marcelo Brozovic played close to and sometimes between the centre backs as a deep-lying playmaker, offering more freedom to the likes of Nicolo Barella and Çalhanoğlu to move up the pitch rather than getting involved in the build-up. With Alessandro Bastoni moving wide, Brozovic dropped into the gap between him and Stefan de Vrij, disrupting the two-man pressing line of Juventus.

When Inter got out of their half of the pitch, their set attack looked dangerous. They carried their asymmetric 4-3-3 into the opposition’s half where Lautaro Martinez and Dzeko switched sides and duties constantly, offering different options to the players playing deeper.

But despite the attacking power that Inter had, their most impressive and unexpected weapon came from very deep: Alessandro Bastoni. Combining his technical and physical qualities with Ivan Perisic’s ability to play both wide and narrow, the centre-back supported the Nerazzurri’s attacks, sometimes as an overlapping full-back and sometimes as a midfielder who made late, central runs around Juventus’ box. One of these late runs saw Dzeko pursue a pass intended for Bastoni, leading to a clumsy tackle by De Sciglio, resulting in Inter’s equaliser from the spot 35 minutes in.

Both teams seem to stuck in a stalemate after the equaliser. Federico Bernardeschi put his 15 yard shot wide, unmarked for a low cross from Adrien Rabiot. Mattia Perin amazingly saved a header from Dumfries at the near post, and Lautaro got on the end of a Perisic cross only to head the ball straight at Perin – both chances created by the Bastoni-Perisic-Çalhanoğlu triangle.

After a bunch of substitutions with no real tactical changes from both teams, extra time arrived. With no big chances other than substitute Alexis Sanchez’s header, in the 120th minute Alex Sandro’s attempt at chesting down an Inter cross to Giorgio Chiellini was intercepted by Darmian, who replaced Dumfries. Darmian touched the ball on to Sanchez, who finished past Perin. Inter won the game 2-1 and lifted the Supercoppa Italiana.

With their latest silverware acquired by defeating their bitter rivals in the Derby d’Italia, Inter Milan still have a lot on their plate, with Milan chasing them closely in Serie A and two legs against Liverpool in the the Champions League round of sixteen. But after their losses in the last summer, it’s easy to say that club has licked their wounds sufficiently, on their way to becoming a real force in both European and Italian football this season.

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