Simone Inzaghi celebrated as if he had written down the purpose himself.
The Inter head coach dashed from his technical area, making a run to the penalty box, his dress shoes slipping and sliding on the San Siro grass as he made an about-turn for the corner flag where his players had gathered around centre-back Stefan de Vrij, whose stoppage-time equaliser in the 1-1 draw in the Derby della Madonnina last night felt like something more.
He released a deserved judgment to a sudden and unexpected slide in this rivalry. Inter had won a record of six consecutive derbies and, memorized, sealed its twentieth series of the series through the defeat of Milan in April. This is an explanation why Milan was from the counterpart of Inzaghi, Stefano Pioli, in summer.
The coach’s adjustments (s) have, in this narrow sense but, they had the desired effect.
Milan outclassed Inter in September under Paoli’s successor Paulo Fonseca and came back to beat them under Fonseca’s replacement Sergio Conceicao in the Super Cup last month. Those results felt like inexplicable aberrations in Inter’s season as much as they felt like curious exceptions in the case of Milan. Sixteen points separated the two sides going into this latest Madonnina and, on form, as has been the case for two and a half years, it was hard not to consider Inter considerable favourites.
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Concepto itself called “one of the worst periods in the history of Milan”, forgetting the 44 years when they passed without winning the League between 1907 and 1951, relegations in 1980 and 1982 and near bankruptcy only seven years ago.
Regardless of the lack of historical perspective shown by Conceicao, it didn’t stop people from feeling that way.
Milan was the eighth in series A and fell from the first eight of the Champions League, the last one through a defeat of 10 men opposed to Dinamo Zagreb in the middle of the week. Inter, on the other hand, was its prolific maximum since 1961 with 55 objectives of 21 days of adjustment and made demanding situations and progress in Europe, in a cessation and without problems to be considered by seated.
Even so, Inter could not play with the opposite abandonment to Milan last night. The specific January Cup opened the intellectual scar tissue of the derbies led and lost in the first Inzaghi season in the rate in 2021-2022. , as if it were distrustful of an aspect of Milan that, at stake, leaves the deceptive impression of being obviously mediocre only to come alive.
While Inter demanded responses from the gods on why some objectives of the first half were prohibited, the diavolo, as Milan is known, reads satanic rites.
Tijjani Reijnders pounced on a loose ball spilt by goalkeeper Yann Sommer from a rare Rafa Leao foray and cross. ‘Here we go again’, the Interisti must have thought. ‘How are we behind?’. Milan had only taken the lead once previously under Conceicao in Serie A. It was his first home game against Cagliari.
Everyone connected with the club hoped he would be able to take the momentum of dramatically winning the Super Cup into the league. Fleetingly last night, it looked like it might happen.
Alvaro Morata put Milan in front that night against the Sardinians. It has proved to be his sixth and final goal for the club. Barely six months after joining from Atletico Madrid, Spain’s European Championship-winning skipper moved to Galatasaray on loan last week.
Milan couldn’t get that headline to oppose Cagliari, and neither could they on Sunday. Inside twice were banned by the targets in the first half and hit the woodwork 3 times before grabbing a deserved point.
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When I conceived, he replaced Leao through Matteo Gabbia and went to one 3 during the last minutes, the possibility of an equalizer is getting bigger.
An hour after he arrived, the Portuguese admitted to the media that it was a fair result. He had spent a component of the game sitting in a cooling box in the technical area, assuming that Marcelo Bielsa’s position. If it contained snacks or not. It is not clear. Conceicao had told his players in Milan to empty their cooling at home, because they will have to be hungry. Night, at least the team seemed to have been an intermittent fasting.
After Milan’s return from Zagreb, reprimanded and embarrassed, the club’s leaders reminded the team of the criteria expected of the team. It is a dramatic week.
Davide Calabria, who lost the captain’s armband when Concicao took over, sunk the window of his corporate car and wept letting him succeed in Bologna. Emerson Royal could already be in Galatasaray, while waiting for Morata, if he had not done so and they had been injured opposite Girona in the penultimate attack of the Champions League. The great expense of the expenses was confidently offered to Theo Hernandez and then withdrew his offering. Fikayo Tomori rejected withdrawals in the Premier League. Strahinja Pavlovic has also aroused interest.
In short, three-quarters of the defence which started against Inter looked, at varying stages, to be on their way out of the club. The one quarter of it who wasn’t happened to be new signing Kyle Walker, the England full-back following Alessandro Melli and Giuseppe Pancaro in making his Milan debut in a Derby della Madonnina.
Fans will have to wait to see Morata’s replacement, Santi Gimenez, who could not be registered in time for the derby. Gimenez breaks the threshold and pattern of behaviour of Milan principally signing players for around €20million (£16.7m; $20.5m). His fee, roughly around what the club paid for Charles De Ketelaere in 2022, is closer to €40m. It’s a show of ambition and a corrective for a bad summer in which they got their choice of new manager wrong, not to mention every headline signing other than Youssouf Fofana.
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Milan will have to wait for them to have made more this time and that the conscience, which, will have to be remembered, has only been in the task consisting of the month, is beginning to offer consistency and greater consistent with the formations. Bologna, Fiorentina and Juventus won the weekend, which means that Milan once returned to the floor in the race for fourth place.
As for Inter, his game XI on Sunday provided any of the players signed in summer. His is a very complicated team to improve. That said, the attendance for Vrij’s equalizer came here from Nicola Zalewski, who, unlike Giménez, concluded a new club at a well -timed moment to be eligible to play last night.
And Inter, in the end, had more than Zalewski to thank his parent club, Roma, for as the weekend drew to a close.
Like Madonnina, the Sole derby between Rome and Napoli spent Sunday, ended with a draw, with copies of Angelino de Vrij and marking a potentially critical due objective that prevented the league leaders from winning and not They put more sunlight between them and bury. He kept the career as it was. The Inter only remains 3 problems of a Napoli without Europe with an adjustment in the hand.
Inzaghi has come through another big game without it damaging Inter’s title credentials.
Wait for Napoli to the cable.
(Top photo: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)