Milan. This Monday, Inter Milan became the second team in history to win the Italian championship 20 times, and the chance of the calendar led to it achieving this by defeating its great rival, AC Milan (2-1).
In the first opportunity they had to secure the ‘Scudetto’, Lautaro Martínez and his teammates were present to put the icing on the cake to a season in which they have ruthlessly dominated Serie A.
To make the joy of their ‘tifosi’ double, the ‘Nerazzurri’ won the Milan derby at San Siro, in which AC Milan was officially playing at home, thanks to goals from Francesco Acerbi (18) and Marcus Thuram (49).
The ‘Rossonero’ team reduced the difference in the 80th minute through Fikayo Tomori, but woke up too late.
The final stretch of the match was punctuated by several altercations between players from both teams that led to three being sent off, two from AC Milan and one from Inter.
With five dates left in the season, Inter has a now impossible-to-reach lead of 17 points against its neighbors Milan.
Simone Inzaghi’s team made history in the Italian championship: before, only Juventus had reached, in 1982, the number of 20 national titles that grants the right to embroider two gold stars on their shirts.
Although Juve largely dominates the historical record of Serie A, with the astronomical total of 36 titles – and thus three stars -, Inter surpassed AC Milan, who had placed themselves at their level in 2022 with their 19th title.
– Ten wins in a row –
Inter’s title had been assumed by everyone for weeks, given the superiority of the ‘Nerazzurri’ and the irregularity of their pursuers.
With the previous champion, Napoli, quickly out of the equation, Inter spent almost the entire season in the lead, leaving only crumbs to AC Milan (leader on the 8th date) and Juventus, who briefly spent the lead after the date twenty-one.
With Inter having a string of victories (including a series of ten in a row between January and March), AC Milan lost most of its chances in the European autumn, while Juve lost its footing at the beginning of the year with only seven points in nine games.
Simone Inzaghi has led an unstoppable winning machine: his team has only conceded one defeat in the league, against modest Sassuolo (2-1) at San Siro on September 27.
Their record is impressive: 27 wins in 33 games with by far the best numbers in attack (79 goals scored) and defense (18 conceded) in Serie A.
Much of that credit belongs to Lautaro Martínez, named captain this season and the championship’s top scorer (23), and Frenchman Marcus Thuram, who arrived last summer from Borussia Mönchengladbach.
“We have worked a lot, we suffered a lot, we changed more than ten players last summer, we really deserve this title,” celebrated Lautaro, who considered that his team “entered the history” of Serie A.
– Goodbye in the Champions League round of 16 –
The Inter team was also successful in its bets on Swiss goalkeeper Yann Sommer (19 games without conceding goals) and on reinforcing its defense with Frenchman Benjamin Pavard.
With Hakan Calhanoglu and Henrix Mkhitaryan, Inter can still break several records between now and the end of the season.
His fantastic 2023-2024 season will, however, continue to be hampered by his elimination by Atlético de Madrid in the round of 16 of the Champions League, a competition in which he had reached the final in 2023, and by Acerbi’s alleged racist insults, finally exonerated by the Italian Federation.
On the playing fields at least, the future looks bright: Inzaghi and Lautaro will renew, the arrivals of Medhdi Taremi (FC Porto) and Piotr Zielinski (Naples) are already closed.
But in the offices the situation is less optimistic: Inter, forced to sell to sign, reduced its losses in 2022-2023 but they still amounted to 85 million euros.
Its owner since 2016, the Chinese Suning group of businessman Steven Zhang, is multiplying loans to stay afloat.
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– 2024-04-25 07:00:18
