terzo

Did you hear that sound at the San Siro after Bonucci scored the winning penalty for Juventus? No, not the sound of Juve players & supporters celebrating their progress to the Coppa Italia final but that other sound. The sound of pride when Inter finally showed their fans at home, that they care about the shirt by demonstrating who they really are. By showing that this is Inter.

From the very second Andrea Gervasoni blew his whistle to start this match there was a feeling in the air. A feeling that this was not gonna be another lacklustre performance by the home team after loosing yet another match against Juventus. A feeling that resembled that feeling when Inter faced Tottenham in the Europa League under Andrea Stramaccioni when the team turned a 0-3 deficit from the first leg to a 3-0 win in the second leg before eventually losing on the away goal rule.

I say the feeling resembled but wasn’t exactly the same because this Inter are much more solid in defense as well as being much better in terms of movement and pace which shocked Max Allegri and his Juventus for the better part of 90 minutes. It was as if Inter collectively stood up and said enough is enough, no more humiliation, no more mistakes and poor concentration, no more “oh so near’s” and honorable defeats. Tonight, Mancini’s team went out there to make a statement and show the world and possibly more importantly demontrate to themselves that they really are a top 3 team and that they weren’t going to go down without a fight, and boy did they fight.

No-one illustrated this better than Gary Medel. He ran like a pitbull with rabies chasing the life out of Juventus’ midfield, not giving them a second to breathe and winning every single challenge fairly and sometimes maybe not so fairly but showing that he cared and that this match mattered to him. He was accompanied by a Marcelo Brozovic who quite possibly gave the best performance he’s ever given in an Inter shirt, through his dynamic runs as well as great finishing.

Every single Inter-player went out there and played their hearts out and 3-0 after 90 minutes was a flattering result for Juventus who were lucky when Adem Ljajic first hit the crossbar before missing another chance all in the first half. It’s not very often you can say that it didn’t really matter that Inter didn’t win the match, because although losing the penalty shoot-out, Roberto Mancini and his players won back their pride and honor last night. Just in the nick of time too, because there’s only 11 matches left of the Serie A where Inter need to build a run of form in order to threaten Fiorentina and Roma for the third spot. And if they are to challenge for the third spot, they need to start on Sunday night against Palermo at the San Siro by demonstrating as they did last night that: this is Inter.