Inter, Champions morale after Florence: Plzen goal and qualification

After hitting their third consecutive league victory for the first time this season, it will be much easier for Inter and Simone Inzaghi to prepare for Wednesday afternoon’s match (6.45 pm) in the Champions League against Viktoria Plzen. A match that, if won, will give the Nerazzurri, for the second consecutive year, the mathematical qualification for the knockout stages of the Champions League with one round ahead of the end of the group. To tell the truth, Skriniar and his teammates will just need to get the same result as Barcelona, ​​playing at home against Bayern (the Blaugrana, however, will take the field at 21 knowing the Nerazzurri result …), to access the elimination phase, but in the avenue della Liberazione and at Pinetina nobody makes calculations. Against the modest Bohemians, who have always lost in the first four rounds of the group stage, cashing in as many as 16 goals, the only result taken into consideration is success.

THRUST SERIES A

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Inter will arrive at the match point for the second round of Champions with morale at a thousand and one newfound conviction in their own means. Because the night in Florence, although characterized by some avoidable defensive errors and the help of the Blindfolded Goddess (Dimarco’s failure to expel for the penalty on Bonaventura and purple controversy for Dzeko’s foul on Milenkovic in the action of 4-3), given a further boost to a team already in clear recovery thanks to the four points won in the two clashes with Barcelona and the successes against Sassuolo and Salernitana. Not winning at the Franchi, however, would have meant putting aside the scudetto ambitions (especially in the case of Napoli’s victory against Roma tonight), a goal that, conversely, Inzaghi was able to raise in front of notebooks and microphones. He too knows that his “creature” still does not turn as he would like, but he has revised the character and the desire to never give up that has distinguished this group since the arrival of Conte. The emblem is Nicolò Barella, on the bench against Bayern after a derby to forget and now again a splendid all-round midfielder already at 5 goals this season. Thanks to today’s head-to-head clashes (Atalanta-Lazio and Rome-Naples) watching the ranking will certainly be more enjoyable than last October 1st, when the 2-1 suffered at San Siro had certified the fourth knockout in the first eight days. Compared to then, the Nerazzurri world has turned upside down.

MEETING AND HEAD

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In the interviews of Bastoni and Lautaro last Sunday and in that of last night by Toro himself, the reference to the post-Inter-Roma meeting is constant, when in the locker room the players looked at each other and also said hard-nosed what not it went. It was the moment when the team, fresh from defeats against Udinese and the Giallorossi, restarted. From that confrontation, the feat against Barcelona at San Siro and the change of gear of the season were born. The gestures of reproach and disapproval towards his teammates have vanished, making an extra run is back to being normal, but above all Inter has disappeared on the verge of a nervous breakdown seen at the beginning of 2022-23. Inzaghi with his words helped to change the “chip” in the heads of the singles, but the clarification at Pinetina at the beginning of October weighed heavily.

TOO MANY GOALS

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However, not everything is perfect and the Inter mechanisms do not turn like those of a Swiss watch: in fact, the problems of too many goals collected and the comebacks suffered remain to be solved. Especially away from home where the team takes on water in a conspicuous way: three goals to the passive in Rome against Lazio, in the derby at the Rossoneri’s home, in Udine, in Barcelona and last night in Florence; one in Lecce and Reggio Emilia, zero only in Plzen against the modest Viktoria. The total says 17 balls collected in their own goal in 8 external matches. Too many to dream of the Scudetto. An immediate solution is urgently needed. And the comebacks “granted” to the opponents are also worrying: from 1-0 to 1-1 in Lecce, from 1-0 to 1-3 against Milan, from 1-0 to 1-3 against Udinese, from 1- 0 to 1-2 against Roma, from 2-1 to 2-2 and from 3-2 to 3-3 against Barcelona, ​​from 1-0 to 1-1 against Sassuolo, from 2-0 to 2-2 and from 3-2 to 3-3 in Florence. When this Inter takes the lead, it is difficult to close the confrontation or manage to manage it as it often happened with Conte, but quite frequently also last season with Inzaghi. Individual mistakes are still too frequent and something needs to be fixed quickly. On Wednesday against Plzen it is forbidden to make mistakes: Inter must be lucid, cynical and not … crazy like in Florence. Even if winning a match like that of Franchi, in the 95th minute thanks to a goal on a rebound (it is Venuti who sends the 4-3 ball back to Mkhitaryan), it is precisely from … Inter.