The semi-final known to Italians as il Euroderby began with an ear-splitting chorus of “Pioli’s on fire” one week ago at San Siro, Milan supporters showing appreciation for their manager, Stefano, but it ended as vindication for the man in the opposing dugout. Simone Inzaghi was supposed to be a dead man walking in early April, national newspapers predicting that one more defeat could lead to his sacking at Internazionale. At which point he simply stopped losing.
Eight wins in a row have carried the Nerazzurri from sixth to third in Serie A, and into a pair of cup finals. Defending the Coppa Italia is one thing, fighting for the Champions League another. Few outsiders gave Inter hope of even reaching the knockout phase of this competition when they were drawn with Bayern Munich and Barcelona in the group stage.
Yet that is what they did, beating the Catalan side at home and drawing 3-3 at the Camp Nou before eliminating Porto, Benfica and now their neighbours Milan. Inzaghi insisted on Tuesday that none of this was a surprise to him, telling Sky Sports: “I believed. I believed from the day of the draw.”
It takes more than self-confidence to reach a European final. On Tuesday, Inter won by suffocating any lingering hope out of a Milan side they had beaten 2-0 in the first leg. The Rossoneri mustered only a single shot on target before Lautaro Martínez struck in the 74th minute to put this tie to bed.
This was the fifth meeting of the season between these teams, and the fourth in a row that has ended with an Inter clean sheet. Would it be oversimplifying things to trace that statistic back to one player? Would it seem ridiculous if the footballer in question was a 35-year-old centre-back who had played a grand total of 10 Champions League games before this season, playing on loan with an option to buy for €4m?
Francesco Acerbi’s neutralisation of Olivier Giroud has been one of the more quietly fascinating subplots of this season in Italy. The Frenchman’s two goals in a derby in February last year changed everything, turning a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 victory that set Milan on a path to winning the Scudetto off their neighbours.
Giroud scored again as Milan beat Inter at the start of this campaign, with a newly arrived Acerbi watching from the bench. Since then, the defender has been assigned to mark him in all four derbies, and the striker has not had a sniff.
Inter were champions of Italy when Inzaghi succeeded Antonio Conte in 2021 but the process of dismantling a title-winning side was already under way. The club’s owners, Suning, needed to cut costs after years of heavy losses, raising more than €200m (£174m) in that first summer from the sales of Romelu Lukaku, Achraf Hakimi and Matteo Politano. Less than a quarter was reinvested in the squad.
Inzaghi accepted the situation without complaint, not lamenting a lack of transfer spend, but Acerbi was one player he lobbied for. They worked together for three years at Lazio, and the manager recognised what he still had to offer as a player and a leader: someone who has survived testicular cancer and overcome a messy relationship with alcohol that threatened to derail him early in his career.
It was Acerbi who laid out the significance of this derby most bluntly before the second leg, saying that “if we lose this becomes a shit season. Very little separates a great season from a failure”.
Inter took the path towards glory on Tuesday, and while they will certainly be underdogs against either Manchester City or Real Madrid in the final, neither Inzaghi nor his players believe they are going to Istanbul to make up the numbers. “We are in the final of the Champions League on merit,” said Robin Gosens. “When you are in the final of the Champions League you step out on to the pitch to win.”
This Inter team might not have an Erling Haaland or Karim Benzema, but they are hardly average Joes. Martínez is a World Cup winner whom Inzaghi has backed to one day challenge for the Ballon d’Or. Nicolò Barella is the most well-rounded midfielder Italy has produced in a generation. Hakan Çalhanoglu is on a mission to prove his stated belief that he is one of the best five playmaking midfielders in the world.
Their depth has been essential. Where Ismaël Bennacer’s injury in the first leg of this semi-final was a hammer blow to Milan, Inter could lose Henrikh Mkhitaryan on Tuesday and call on Marcelo Brozovic, a medalist at the past two World Cups, off the bench. Lukaku, back at the club on loan, has collected five goals and three assists in his past four league games but Inzaghi had the luxury of deploying him here as an impact sub in relief of Edin Dzeko.
Then there is the defence that has conceded only three times in this eight-game winning streak. An all-Italian back three of Acerbi, Alessandro Bastoni and Matteo Darmian has impressed but Inzaghi’s greatest coaching triumph at Inter has perhaps been Federico Dimarco, the 25-year-old wing-back who graduated from the club’s academy but who had spent most of his career bouncing between short-term moves to other clubs – Ascoli, Empoli, Sion, Parma and Verona.
Dimarco, who set up Mkhitaryan’s goal in the first leg, has the joint-most assists of any player in this season’s Champions League, level on five with Madrid’s Vinícius Júnior. He grew up an Inter fan and was present at San Siro when they lost to Milan the last time these teams met in a Champions League semi-final, in 2003.
After the final whistle went on Tuesday, he grabbed a microphone and led supporters in a chant of “we’re all off to Istanbul”. In the Curva Nord a banner was raised, taunting Milan with the message “Pioli’s on ferie”. No longer on fire, but off on his holidays instead.
