Inter-Milan, whoever loses the derby goes to Hell

Derbies that don’t count haven’t invented them yet. It is enough to remove the thin patina of sadness that covers it to discover that this too weighs. And it weighs a lot. There is sadness and it is irrefutable, in the sense that Inter and Milan have won the last two championships and tonight they face each other 13 and 15 points respectively from the top. Milan has recoiled at the time of the Juventus tyranny of the 9 championships. In fact, to find a derby so far from the leaders, we need to go back to 17 March 2019: Milan-Inter 2-3, with the Rossoneri on 24 points from Juve and the Nerazzurri on 25. Since then the gap has gradually closed. But after two years of Milan to drink, Inter and Milan returned to suck with a straw and Napoli took off. The championship ambitions have been drastically reduced.

playoff

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But, once this husk of sadness is removed, there is pulp underneath. We expect a juicy derby, because it’s worth a lot, trivially because it’s the last of the season and therefore it will leave the city crown on the head of whoever wins. Unless hypothesizing a Champions League derby in the noblest part of the draw, as happened in 2003 (semifinal). It lasts… The pride of supremacy in the circle of the Navigli has always counted and now, even more, after the deposits of the last derby games, from the Milan championship party with Ibra’s thoughts addressed to Calhanoglu to the Turkish’s philosophical answer from Riyadh : “The karma comes back. We ate them.” But there is much more at stake than pride.

Future at stake

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With 5 teams grouped in 2 points, fighting for 3 Champions seats, it is a mortal sin to squander and, even more, to do it in a direct match. Given the financial health and spending power of the two clubs, being or not being in the next Champions League opens up profoundly different future prospects. Roma, who yesterday beat Empoli, detached Milan and hooked up with Inter, added kilos of pressure. A draw would be of little use. It would be a half-defeat for both. But it’s not just about the result itself, because the derby is not a match like any other: winning or losing it unleashes a tsunami of emotions, uplifting or depressing, which will certainly have an impact on the matches to come. Just look at how Milan came out of the Super Cup defeat: two defeats with 9 goals conceded. After the traumatic comeback suffered by Roma, the Devil became a statue of salt, he stopped: 4 defeats and one draw, elimination from the Italian Cup, lost Super Cup. This disaster makes tonight’s derby the edge of a ravine: restart or low hell; pride or precipice. With what spirit would you face Conte’s Tottenham at the resumption of the Champions League? Inter presents itself with other lightness. After the break, the Nerazzurri won 6 out of 8 games. The draw (mocking comeback by Monza) and the one lost (Empoli) came, not surprisingly, after the two most gratifying victories: over leaders Napoli and against AC Milan in Riyadh . It means that this Inter is vulnerable to presumption. The louder you feel, the more you are at risk.

In the laboratory

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This is why Inzaghi’s psychological work on the eve was a delicate balancing act. On the one hand, to convince the team of its own strength, as it did yesterday in the conference (“Beating Milan made us win two cups”), on the other, to defuse the belief that the derby has already been won because Milanese literature is full of underdogs who left the San Siro with a smile. On the other hand, Pioli’s education is one-way: remembering that Milan always have the Scudetto on their chest and that they have won the last two league derbies. A patient mending torn self-esteem. No less painful was the tactical preparation. Inzaghi limited himself to pressing the “confirm” button and tracing lines already drawn with a felt-tip pen: Riyadh’s Inter is fine. Although growing, Lukaku cannot put Dzeko out who took the Devil for a walk in the Super Cup. Darmian, Atalanta’s executioner in the Italian Cup, deserves the titular ranks and Calha the steering wheel. On the contrary, Pioli, in the Milanello laboratory, never so armored, had to experiment a lot. He can no longer copy the beautiful lines that made him champion. They melted away. He studied how to tactically recover protection from a defense in disarray: 4-3-3? 3-5-2? Messias? Pioli’s daily life is a frantic recovery work. He must rediscover the creative fury of Leao and the goals of Giroud, who has returned dejected and disarmed from the World Cup: only the useless goal against Sassuolo after Qatar. Lautaro, who won the World Cup, scored 5 in joy. Milan also lacks Theo Hernandez’s deep run and, more generally, the collective power to be able to press and always remain short as in the past. An indicator of the Devil’s athletic health will come from the Barella-Tonali confrontation, now a classic. There’s no escape: only when he can afford his aggressive game will we see Stefano Pioli’s real Milan again.

Band Arrows

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Let’s expect battles on the left (Dimarco-Mkhitaryan, Theo-Leao), without forgetting that Giroud’s goal-scudetto was served by Calabria and that Dimarco’s was cooked on the right by Darmian and Barella. There is a lot of life to the right as well. Expect a fire derby. Inter and Milan will enter the field reciting the same mantra: “We have already beaten them, we can beat them again”. Anyone who has been a second driver for a lifetime doesn’t become Senna at the last Grand Prix. But whoever has just lifted a cup and has the Scudetto on his chest believes it. He knows he can do it again. Inter and Milan want to win the derby, because losing it would hurt too much.