As the firework show ended, Lautaro Martínez carried the Supercoppa trophy over to supporters behind the goal. “C’è solo l’Inter,” played on the public address – “There’s only Inter” – and in the moment that anthem felt apt. The Nerazzurri have won this competition for three years running. Martínez has scored in the final every time.
Is that the right way to phrase it? All 35 Supercoppe before this one had been finals by default: a one-off game between Italy’s league and cup winners. This was the first edition to feature semi-finals, with the runners-up from each competition invited along for a showcase event in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.
It is not the first time the Supercoppa has gone abroad. Previous games have been played in Libya, China, Qatar and the United States. Still, this expanded version met resistance from the start. Supporters’ groups from three of the clubs involved – Napoli, Fiorentina and Lazio – released statements saying they would not attend. The latter club’s manager, Maurizio Sarri, called it “anything but sport”.
Internazionale ultras shared the sentiment, but a contingent travelled to Riyadh all the same. A post on the Curva Nord’s Instagram account decried “a football now governed by vile money” but said they would follow through on “a promise made since we were kids … a love for Inter that overcomes every obstacle and border”.
Those present at the KSU Stadium for Inter’s 1-0 win over Napoli on Monday cannot have regretted it. A few got to take turns at hoisting the trophy, Martínez handing it over as players congregated under the stand. This was the club’s first silverware since he succeeded Samir Handanovic as captain last summer.
Martínez was already prolific for Inter, scoring 28 goals last season and 25 the year before that. He is on course to comfortably exceed those numbers this term, with 21 already in 27 appearances.
All eyes were on him from the start this season. Following the departures of Edin Dzeko and Romelu Lukaku, Inter’s manager, Simone Inzaghi, had no choice but to build the attack around the Argentinian. There are worse people to do it. It was Inzaghi who restored Ciro Immobile at Lazio after disastrous spells in Germany and Spain, helping the striker to equal Serie A’s single-season scoring record.
Inter found a perfect foil in the summer transfer window, landing Marcus Thuram on a free transfer. Martínez likes to roam, drifting out of high central positions into those where he thinks he can receive the ball. Where Dzeko and Lukaku were more static, Thuram is mobile – just as happy attacking the spaces vacated by Martínez as he is moving wide to put in a cross.
Their easy partnership has been the key component to Inter piling up 49 goals in 20 Serie A games. They carried that form into the Supercoppa, Thuram scoring the opener in Inter’s 3-0 demolition of Lazio in the semi-final. Martínez, for once, went without a strike of his own.
Monday’s final was a very different game. Napoli, Serie A’s reigning champions, have put up a dismal title defence, hiring and then firing Rudi Garcia before continuing to lose under his replacement Walter Mazzarri. They sit ninth in the league, and travelled to Saudi Arabia without their top scorer, Victor Osimhen, who is with Nigeria at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Yet they had shown signs of turning things around during a 3-0 semi-final win of their own against Fiorentina, Mazzarri abandoning the 4-3-3 used by his predecessors and swapping to the back three he has preferred for much of his career. The same tactic was effective against Inter, Napoli surrendering possession but still pressing aggressively to disrupt their opponents’ build-up play and look for opportunities to counter.
Udinese have been ordered to play one match behind closed doors after Milan's goalkeeper Mike Maignan was racially abused during a Serie A match there on Saturday. The sanction has been imposed by the league's sports judge, Gerardo Mastrandrea.
The judgment states the one-match stadium closure was the minimum sanction which could have been imposed and was chosen to reflect Udinese's active stance and willingnes from the start to identify those responsible. The club announced on Monday they had banned a supporter for life for racially abusing Maignan. PA Media
The first half passed with plenty of fierce tackles but few clear-cut chances. Audiences back home were sharply reminded of this game’s setting during the interval, when an attempted minute’s silence for Gigi Riva, the all-time leading scorer for the Italian men’s national team who died on Monday, was met with whistles by local fans. The same had happened for Franz Beckenbauer during the Supercopa de España earlier this month.
Set against the image of a visibly moved Mazzarri, who appeared to be learning of Riva’s death in real time, it was a jarring moment. Hosting this tournament in Saudi Arabia has clear economic benefits, with the winners taking home €8m in prize money, but the question of what it has done for the league’s image ought to be raised. The KSU stadium was less than half-full for Napoli’s semi-final.
Napoli started the second half with their most threatening moment of the match, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia testing Yann Sommer with a curling effort from the edge of the box. But then Giovanni Simeone was sent off for a double booking. Antonio Rapuano, who was slow to show anyone a card in the first-half, veered without warning from laissez-faire to fussy, and the first of the striker’s two yellows looked harsh in the context of challenges that Hakan Calhanoglu had got away with.
Still, the game almost went to penalties. Napoli dug in and Inter were wasteful, Thuram betraying the nervousness of the occasion as he got his feet in a muddle on a pair of shooting opportunities.
Martínez had no such trouble. When the excellent Benjamin Pavard cut a low pass across the six-yard box in the 91st minute, Inter’s captain finished with aplomb. Mazzarri, who had been seen shouting “vergogna” – “shameful” – at the referee after Simeone’s red card, immediately left the sideline and headed for the changing room.
There were echoes of the 2012 Supercoppa in Beijing, when he and his Napoli team boycotted the medal ceremony after a loss to Juventus marked by contentious decisions. Mazzarri’s players did attend on this occasion, though he once again did not.
Napoli may yet draw positives from defeat. If they can reproduce performances like this in Serie A, they still have time to fight their way back into the Champions League race. New arrival Pasquale Mazzocchi started and put in a solid performance at left-back while Giovanni Di Lorenzo adapted well to playing in a back three.
Conversely, this victory could yet prove costly to Inter. Nicolò Barella picked up a yellow card that will lead to him being suspended for Sunday’s league game at fourth-placed Fiorentina. Juventus also took advantage of Inter’s absence last weekend to move ahead of them into first place. The gap is only one point, and the Nerazzurri have a game in hand, but there are different pressures at play when you are no longer setting the pace.
Martínez had been dismissive of questions about whether he would watch Juventus over the weekend, saying his focus was all on Napoli. “This cup was a key objective for our season,” he said at full time. “Especially after we were knocked out of the Coppa Italia [by Bologna].”
They have claimed the Supercoppa every year since Simone Inzaghi took charge. He has now won this trophy more than any other manager – five times in total, taking in two triumphs at Lazio. In each of the past two seasons it has formed part of a cup double, but with the Coppa Italia off the table this time the pressure is on to pursue greater targets.
Serie A is the priority, as Inter seek a 20th Scudetto that would allow them to fix a second star above their club badge. But the Champions League no longer seems like an impossible goal, after last season’s run to the final. The question hanging in the air is whether this triumph in the first expanded Supercoppa will become another galvanising moment, or instead be looked back on as a draining trip at a pivotal moment as the season moves into a defining stage.
