Viva Internazionale!

THE SCUDETTO RETURNS TO MILAN AND, IN RECOGNITION OF INTER MILAN'S SECOND STAR, TUDOR HAS UNVEILED A LIMITED-EDITION BLACK BAY 58.

- SUFFIAN HAKIM

I WAS GLUED TO THE TELEVISION on Tuesday, 23 April this year for the final Milan derby of the season. Inter Milan, top of the Serie A table, had an imperious 14-point lead over their city archrivals AC Milan, who sat in second place. A win at San Siro/Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, the very stadium the two teams share, would clinch the league for Inter.

Inter were not expected to come to this point this season. After last year’s disappointing third place finish, the usually high expectations at Inter Milan were somewhat tempered for the 2023/2024 season. New Head Coach Simone Inzaghi did lead them to the Champions League final last year (which they lost by a single goal to Manchester City), but he has yet to win the league in his entire coaching career.

However, after a strong start — including an emphatic 5-1 thumping of AC Milan last September — there were stirrings of hope in the blue-and-black half of Milan.

The match was a heated affair, with Inter determined to clinch the trophy, and AC Milan doing their utmost to ensure their pesky neighbours don’t win the title off the Milan derby. But Inter drew first blood when Francesco Acerbi, the 36-year-old defender brought in by Inzaghi in 2022 as a stop-gap measure to address Inter’s lack of depth in defence, reacted first to a loose ball from a Federico Dimarco corner to tap in the opening goal.

Their second goal came less than five minutes into the second half, when a pinpoint long ball by defender Alessandro Bastoni found Marcus Thuram, who drilled it into the bottom corner. Bastoni’s precision and long-range delivery has been central to Inter’s success this season, and it was fitting that it was the 25-year-old’s assist that helped seal the title.