Towards Inter-Benfica between missing goals, defeats and the San Siro taboo

Benfica’s defeat against Chaves does not console. At least it doesn’t console those Inter fans who booed their team after the ninetieth, beaten for the third time in a row at home in the league, and without scoring a single goal. It had never happened in Nerazzurri history. On Wednesday, Inzaghi’s men will also be able to afford to lose 1-0 to qualify for the Champions League semi-finals, but in an important and very delicate match like the one against the Eagles of Schmidt, they will arrive with low spirits and with many fears in their heads. Because they no longer know how to score, because fourth place in the league has slipped away and because, across national borders, everything seems to be going wrong. Eleven knockouts in Serie A are a huge amount for an Inter who had collected just four in 2021-22 and who had lost the Scudetto in the last round.

Sterile attachment

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It is difficult to think that a team with an offensive department made up of Lukaku, Lautaro, Dzeko and Correa cannot find the way to goal continuously. In the last 5 matchdays of Serie A, the nerazzurri have finished 113 times towards the opponent’s goal (26 tonight) and have scored only once from open play (with Gosens in Bologna) and once from a penalty (with Lukaku in La Spezia). An incredible figure that becomes even more worrying when combined with the number of goals scored in the last 12 league rounds: just 10. In the first 18 Serie A games there were 38 goals: the average went from 2.1 to 0.8 encounter. Impossible to find a logical explanation in the face of such a collapse. Certainly you can’t give all the credit to the opposing goalkeepers. That would be too simple. Many faults must be attributed to the Nerazzurri who lack coolness in front of goal, try unrealistic shots from outside, do not attack depth with sufficient malice or almost never create numerical superiority due to the chronic inability to jump the opponent with dribbling. Furthermore, there are no leaders in the squad capable of dragging their teammates along in times of difficulty, of giving a jolt in complicated evenings. Unconsciously it is as if this Inter were reserving the best of themselves for the European nights or the Coppa Italia. But in doing so he risks staying out of the next Champions League, unless the one he’s playing now wins, in the final in Istanbul on 10 June.

Mental block

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The feeling is that the group is mentally blocked. Since 23 January, when he lost at home against Empoli and definitively said goodbye to his dream of the Scudetto, the light has gone out in Serie A. The defeats against Bologna, Spezia, Juventus, Fiorentina and Monza have arrived, the team has lost certainties and lives every match like… a movie already seen: it starts well, touches the net, but then disunites, concedes a goal and is shipwrecked . Perhaps some players were subconsciously convinced that in some way qualification for the Champions League would have been “guaranteed” by non-irresistible competition. Now maybe some calculations will need to be revised. Older fans already compare this Inter to the one that finished the championship close to the relegation zone in 1993-94, but managed to win the UEFA Cup. If Barella and his teammates lifted the Cup in Istanbul, San Siro would forgive nights like the one against Empoli, Fiorentina or Monza. Without the most coveted trophy and entry into the top four, however, it will be a revolution: not only Inzaghi will leave, but also several players. However, there will be time for trials at the end of the season. Now only Benfica counts, in the hope of not reliving another night as Pazza Inter.