It’s hard to believe that just eight short years ago, Inter and Jose Mourinho had completed a historic treble, the last Italian side to win the Champions League. Right now though, their fortunes have been turned upside down, as “The Special One” continues to make negative headlines at Manchester United, while his former side struggle domestically despite strong investment from the owners this summer.
Last term, the Nerazzurri sneaked into the Champions League on the final day of the campaign, beating Lazio, the very team in which they were competing with for fourth place. Knowing that they would be competing in Europe’s most elite competition for the first time since 2011/12, Inter’s Chinese proprietors Suning brought in players to plug every single gap that Coach Luciano Spalletti, a gesture that was recognised by their supporters.
“Club: kept promises, ask respect from everyone.
“Coach and players: no excuses, no words... keep your heads down and win!!”
This was a banner raised before the Nerazzurri’s first home match versus Torino, having already lost 1-0 to lowly Sassuolo on opening day. The side seemed to have well and truly heeded that message as they went 2-0 up and looked to be cruising at half-time, only to capitulate and let Torino back into the match as the scores ended up 2-2.
A 3-0 win away to Bologna made it seem like their problems were behind them, only for an absolute disaster to be waiting for them right after the international break. A match at home to newly-promoted Parma was an ideal way to put together back-to-back wins, the very best way to prepare for a tough midweek clash versus Tottenham.
However, their weaknesses were to appear once again as – despite dominating possession with 73% of the ball – Inter went down to an unthinkable 1-0 defeat to their lowly opponents, the home side making just one shot on goal in the opening 45 minutes. Furthermore, injuries to Vrsaljko and Daniele D’Ambrosio, along with having left Dalbert out of the Champions League squad means that Inter have just one full-back available for this midweek, forcing them to change to a back three.
“We messed up too many crosses, too many passes for the quality at our disposal,” admitted Spalletti after the shock defeat to Parma while also blaming opposition time wasting and a VAR failure on their goal. “We introduced Matteo Politano for the second half to add fresh legs, but he looked weighed down by the pressure and could barely run. It’s not physical form or fitness training, it’s the desperate attempt to do more and it leads to fractures within the team’s organisation.”
Perhaps this is a good time for Tottenham – who themselves lost to Liverpool this weekend – to play the former Champions League winners. Of course, Spurs have also enjoyed much more recent experience of the competition, having been present in the group stages for the last three years running, making them the favourites to take a win here.
That said, the match should be entertaining for the neutral as previous matchups between the two have yielded plenty of goals, for example when a Gareth Bale hat-trick saw Spurs fight back from 4-0 down to bring the tie to 4-3 at San Siro in 2010/11, winning their home leg 3-1.
Tottenham themselves have been known to crumble, making this match seem like the “battle of the bottlers”, but one that should see the English side pull through with all three points.
