Inter players are celebrating the twentieth league title in the club’s history, which they have just won on Monday April 22, beating AC Milan at San Siro. GABRIEL BOUYS / AFP
The Inter players were obviously not going to miss out on this double pleasure: after having flown through the Serie A season, the Milanese team won, Monday April 22 evening, the twentieth title of Italian champion of the history of the club by offering itself, the ultimate joy, a victory (2-1) over its rival, AC Milan.
To the delight of their excited fans, the Nerazzurri (black and blue) won the Milan derby at San Siro – the stadium that the two clubs share, AC Milan officially being the host on Monday evening – thanks to goals from Francesco Acerbi (18th) and French striker Marcus Thuram (49th). The reduction of the gap by Fikayo Tomori (80th) and a tense end to the match marked by three expulsions gave some shudders to the interior players, who finally held on to win this new “Scudetto”. Five days before the end of the season, Inter have an unrecoverable lead of 17 points over their evening opponent, who conceded their sixth defeat in a row in a derby, in all competitions.
The team coached by Simone Inzaghi leaves its mark on the history of Calcio, Italian football: before it, only Juventus had reached, in 1982, the figure of twenty national titles, which gives the right to embroider two stars on its jerseys golden. If Juve is far at the top of the historic Serie A list with an astronomical total of 36 titles – and therefore three stars – Inter has regained the ascendancy over AC Milan, who had returned to their height in 2022 with his 19th title.
“We made Serie A historywelcomed, very moved, the Argentine striker Lautaro Martinez. Winning a title in a derby had never happened. That’s what I told my teammates before this match, we really had to seize this opportunity. »
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An impressive record
Inter’s coronation was no longer in doubt for several weeks already, as the Nerazzurri dominate their subject and their rivals have multiplied their missteps. The outgoing champion, Naples, quickly out of the equation, Inter spent almost the entire season in the lead, leaving only crumbs to AC Milan (leader after only the 8th day) and Juventus, who briefly passed in the lead after the 21st day.
While Inter had a string of victories (including a series of ten successive victories between January and March), AC Milan compromised their chances in the fall, while Juve lost their footing during the first quarter of 2024 by pocketing seven small points in nine games.
For his part, Inzaghi has put in place a formidable winning machine: his team has only conceded one defeat in the league, against the modest Sassuolo team (2-1) at San Siro, on September 27. His record is impressive: 27 victories in 33 matches with by far the best attacks (79 goals scored) and the best defense (18 conceded) in Serie A.
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He owes a lot to Lautaro Martinez, promoted this season to captain and top scorer in the championship (23 goals), but also to a newcomer with a surname already well known in Serie A, Marcus Thuram. Arriving this summer from Mönchengladbach, the French international had no problem adapting, as proven by his twelve goals and seven assists in the league.
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“It was a crazy match to experience something crazy”declared Lilian’s son, present in the stands for the occasion and played by Parma (1996-2001) and Juventus (2001-2006) during his prestigious playing career.
Inter also had a hollow nose by betting on Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer (19 games without conceding a goal in the league) and on Frenchman Benjamin Pavard to strengthen their defense. With Hakan Çalhanoglu and Henrikh Mkhitaryan at the helm in midfield, Inter can still break some records by the end of the season.
Disappointment in the Champions League
Her fantastic 2023-2024 season will, however, remain marred by her elimination by Atlético Madrid in the round of 16 of the Champions League, of which she played in the final in 2023.
The future still looks bright on the pitch: Inzaghi and Martinez will extend, and the arrivals of Mehdi Taremi (Porto) and Piotr Zielinski (Naples) have already been finalized. Behind the scenes, it is much more vague: Inter, forced to sell to recruit, reduced its losses in 2022-2023, but they still amounted to 85 million euros.
Its owner since 2016, the Chinese group Suning of businessman Steven Zhang, is increasing its borrowing to try to keep its head above water: it has just reached an agreement with an American fund to repay a loan of 375 million euros contracted with the Oaktree fund.
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2024-04-22 21:49:12
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