Chivu sees the usual ghosts again with the rearguard deployed in a zone on dead balls: perfect for large stretches of the match, then the final catastrophe
The terrible joke for Inter is that before the corner kicked in the middle and the headbutt on Gimenez’s Nerazzurri dreams, Cristian Chivu could have even regretted a courageous but skimpy draw: such a performance in Europe would still have been a source of pride, indeed his team would have deserved more because it is not common to build so much in the hot home of Atletico. And instead, in the end, the Romanian coach relived the usual groundhog day: the team loses in various ways despite always playing better than the opponent, and the mockery in sequence in these places is never random. She liquefied again at the best moment, she always collapsed in the face of her own insecurities, especially defensive ones. This Madrid defeat hurt more than the one against the Devil because this time Inter had also shown that they knew how to come back, a sign at least of a rediscovered character, but they got back on the flight to Italy with the old problems even more acute in their nuances: this team does not only suffer from transitions, often given away on the altar of a very expensive game, but also and above all from set pieces in which maniacal application would always be needed.
sos corner
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In Atletico’s first six corners the team lined up in a zone contained as they should always do, in the seventh to the 93rd the head was evidently elsewhere and no one noticed the bursting arrival of Simeone’s centre-back. The photograph of the moment is, in its own way, revealing: ten Nerazzurri players watching the ball, while five Atletico players, exactly half of their rivals, burst in from behind. The Romanian’s tactical novelty, compared to the previous man-marking from a corner claimed by Inzaghi, is one of the radical changes in the Chivu system: it is certainly not wrong from the start, but a precise method is needed to not “lose” the opponent and, above all, a ferocious concentration that the fragile mind of this Inter team often does not have. Indeed, the perpetuation of these varied errors at the back puts Inter in a delicate mental condition: it is now well known that the coach has to sit on the couch, but if this continues, the analyst’s fee skyrockets.
bisseck’s ass
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It’s not the first match that the Nerazzurri would have deserved on points and which, instead, ended with a handful of flies in hand. Each one is different from the others, but there is a thin thread that connects the falls against Juve, Napoli, Milan and this against Atletico barricadero del Cholo: falling into the usual banal errors, bloodily lost balls, wrong last passes and this time, precisely, weak marking. The need for more quality and more mentality is evident, starting from the defense which yesterday was reshuffled in a different form than usual: not only did Acerbi rest, but also De Vrij, expected at the start, watched the battle from the bench. Akanji as a central defender showed some wrinkles and, to his right, Bisseck returned to his old position. In the end, the German showed that he knows the Italian language well and is equally aware of the moment: “We have to continue working, I hope that in the future we will have a little more ass”, he said. And again: “It can happen in football. We didn’t deserve to lose, but that’s how it went. We gave everything, we conceded two shots and two goals. It’s not fair, but this sport is like that and it continues. I’m happy with the performance, there are many things to improve, but I can’t say anything bad about the team, even if they’re doing badly.”
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