Ahead of Inter’s away game in Bologna all three opponents competing for the third place (Napoli, Fiorentina and Verona) had lost their matches in the 13th round and Inter thus had a good opportunity to improve their chances in the race for one of the coveted places that qualify for the European cups.
Inter’s opponents for the evening, Bologna, have had a difficult start to the season and have more quality in the team than the 18th place the team had before tonight’s game against Inter (who they haven’t defeated at home since February 2002) suggests.
Inter’s starting eleven really contained no major changes except that Hugo Armando Campagnaro was back after nearly two months of injury absences and Andrea Ranocchia was missing due to suspension. The young talent Mateo Kovacic had to start the match on the bench, and many are asking why the Croat who impressed in the match against Iceland earlier this week didn’t get the chance from the first minute.
One of those competing with Kovacic for a place in the starting line-up is Taïder who played against his former teammates for the first time and he seemed slightly overcharged as he already after two minutes correctly was given a yellow card when he tackled Morleo. Taïder has made several great performances since he came to Inter but sometimes his youth shines through and during the 55 minutes he played before he was substituted for Kovacic showed that he still has a lot to develop.
That there are things left to develop proved already in the twelfth minute when Inter showed a lousy defense in connection with a counter attack for Bologna that ended with Koné making it 1-0 for the home team. As usual Inter were punished for the few mistakes the team makes in defense as Bologna were allowed to counter-attack after a corner kick for Inter.
In the 14th minute Rodrigo Palacio had a brilliant chance to score as he ended up alone with Bologna’s goalkeeper Curci but failed to get the ball into the net.
In the 24th minute, after Handanovic had saved a header from Cristaldo, Nagatomo was forced to leave the pitch injured and made way for Alvaro Pereira, who has been anything but successful this fall.
A rather vapid first half, which of course contained the usual and often pointless long shots from Guarin, came to life only in the final minutes when Inter, after the ball had moved like a pinball in Bologna’s penalty are, had several good chances to level the score, but neither Taïder nor Pereira succeeded in getting the ball into the open goal. Shortly thereafter Guarin managed to shoot a good free kick which went off Cristaldo and hit the crossbar, but the home team kept the lead at halftime.
The second half started with a superb free kick from Diamanti which forced Handanovic into a fine save. The free kick was so good that the producers on the Swedish TV4 changed the scoreboard to 2-0 for a few seconds..
After six minutes of the second half, Guarin found a pass to Jonathan who shot the ball via Bologna’s Sorensen into the goal for a fair equalizer. Minutes later, Rolando Bianchi, a personal favorite that I would like to see at Inter, had a good opportunity when he turned and shot a couple of yards outside the penalty area but luckily Handanovic was ready.
During the second half Inter had several good opportunities to decide the match through chances for Guarin, Alvarez, Cambiasso and Rolando, but the best opportunity had Juan Jesus, who, from the penalty area’s left side, struck a difficult shot that hit the crossbar and out. Inter didn’t get closer than that this evening.
Inter lost the opportunity to catch up with Napoli and remain in fourth place, two points off the coveted third spot. Inter remain unbeaten away from home this season (three wins and five draws) but there is still a lot to improve. Inter is currently an ongoing project and if this is the bad games we have nevertheless taken a step forward compared to the previous two seasons.
