A banner hung from San Siro’s Curva Sud before kickoff claimed that every devil in hell had come to support Milan but they forgot the one who lives in the details. You can make a stadium into an inferno for an evening but leaving Edin Dzeko marked by a full-back at a corner is a recipe for eternal regret.
“He’s a lot bigger than me, there’s not much to be done,” said Davide Calabria of the goal that set Inter on the way to a 2-0 victory over the Rossoneri in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final. The biggest Milan derby in two decades was barely eight minutes old when Dzeko hooked his leg around the defender and volleyed home.
It was, according to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the first time Stefano Pioli’s team had conceded from a corner in 104 attempts, yet it felt all too familiar. Inter won their previous match against Milan, three months ago, with a goal from the same source: Hakan Calhanoglu delivering both crosses from the same corner of the same ground these teams share. The only difference was the scorer: Dzeko this time, Lautaro Martínez back then.
“Derbies are decided by the details,” said Martínez on Wednesday. The same might be said for cup ties. Inter’s record in knockout competitions since Simone Inzaghi took charge is practically unblemished: winning the Supercoppa in both seasons, as well as bagging the Coppa Italia in 2022 and reaching the final of this year’s edition – to be played against Fiorentina this month.
Nobody at the club dares to presume that they are on course for the Champions League final too. The conversations with reporters after beating Milan became almost comedic in their repetition, one player after another lining up to insist that a 2-0 advantage meant nothing. Francesco Acerbi claimed to feel “neither happy nor content because we have not done anything yet”.
We can at least acknowledge results already achieved. Inter were not even expected to make it through the group stage after they were drawn with Bayern Munich and Barcelona. Their 1-0 win over the Catalan club in October arrived on the back of consecutive league defeats.
The Nerazzurri have kept clean sheets in four out of five knockout ties, with a goalkeeper, André Onana, signed on a free transfer, and a starting centre-back, the Paris Saint-Germain-bound Milan Skriniar, out injured since the middle of last month.
Inzaghi has made plenty of missteps at Inter. His team were expected to compete for the Serie A title this season but are fourth with four games left to play, 20 points behind the champions, Napoli, and locked in a six-way battle for the remaining Champions League spots.
It is a peculiarity of this semi-final – celebrated as a renaissance moment for two of Italy’s most storied clubs – that both managers have faced speculation about their job prospects. Pioli’s Milan are fifth, slipping behind Inter after drawing with 19th-placed Cremonese last week.
Wednesday night, though, was another cup occasion when Inzaghi got all the big calls right. The decisions to start Calhanoglu and Dzeko ahead of Marcelo Brozovic and Romelu Lukaku – despite the Belgian’s sparkling form, with three goals and three assists in his last three starts – were fully rewarded. So was the instinct to go for the jugular at the start.
This was the approach Inter took against Milan in the Supercoppa in January, when they raced to a two-goal lead inside 21 minutes and cruised from there to a 3-0 win. The goals came even quicker this time, Dzeko scoring in the eighth minute and Henrikh Mkhitaryan in the 11th after Martínez created space for him to run through with a dummy on Federico Dimarco’s square pass.
They felt even more decisive here. Milan were the designated home team and fans committed to the effort to make it feel like hell for Inter. By the time Mkhitaryan’s goal went in, it was as though the whole place had been doused in holy water, the ear-splitting roar that greeted kick-off replaced by near silence on the Curva Sud.
Milan eventually roused themselves, and perhaps if Junior Messias or Sandro Tonali had found the target with efforts early in the second half the fires could have risen yet. As it is, the Rossoneri have six days to find the formula that turns this tie around. Much hope will be pinned on Rafael Leão returning from the thigh strain he sustained at the weekend.
Pioli downplayed any suggestion of a gulf between the teams in his post-game remarks, saying: “Inter played better than us in the first half and scored two goals. We did better than them in the second but didn’t.”
If details really are the difference in derbies and cup ties, then converting your chances must be the most important of them. Inter have natural advantages in this area, Inzaghi blessed with the luxury of choice between Martínez, Lukaku and Dzeko where Leão’s injury left Pioli short of options up front.
This time Dzeko made the difference. The Bosnian has plenty of experience deciding big games, having won his first league title with Wolfsburg in 2008-09 and followed that up with two more in England at Manchester City.
His registration says he is 37 years old, but one journalist asked him to confirm his age on Wednesday night, struggling to reconcile that number with the striker’s enduringly nimble and decisive presence on the pitch. “How old did I say last time?” shot back Dzeko. On a night when details mattered, this was one that did not.
