Every week SempreInter.com editorialist, Richard Hall, takes a look back at the glorious history of Inter by highlighting a certain match, hero or any other event in Inter’s history worthy of being labelled a Nerazzurri Classic. Ahead of Sunday’s fixture against Pescara, Richard looks back to the 1953/54 when a Lennart Skoglund inspired Inter side hit the Bianconeri for six. A result which ultimately won Inter the scudetto.
4th April 1954. Complete annihilation
The 1953/54 season saw Inter fighting head to head with Juventus for the Scudetto. The Derby Italia was looming and both teams could have put forward strong arguments to claim that they were the worthy of the championship. As April came around, the home straight became visible with the Nerazzurri desperately needing to overtake the Bianconeri, there were only eight games left to play and this titanic clash was billed as the decider.
The ‘Old Lady’ were in superlative form and had not been beaten in 13 games, this run had seen them beat Sampdoria, Udinese and Genoa although they had drawn their fair share, a statistic that perhaps should have been a warning. Inter instead were still reeling from a 2-0 defeat in the Derby Della Madonnina two weeks earlier, although they had managed to bring back some sort of normality in the following game, when they out Sampdoria to the sword.
Inter were confident, after all, they had win the Scudetto the season before, pipping Juventus to the post by two points. The Nerazzurri’s top scorer that year, Hungarian Istvan Nyers, had, under the watchful eye of coach Alfredo Forni, formed a devastating partnership with Benito Lorenzi and the Swedish magician, Lennart Skoglund. The latter was a sublime talent who had pace in abundance and an understanding of the game that was perhaps a decade in advance. With many mercurial talents however, there is often a dark side and with Skoglund, this was certainly the case. He was a heavy drinker and enjoyed the Milanese night life to its fullest, his coach was distraught and tried to control him as best he could.
After months of finding the Swede in bars in the city center in the early hours before a game, legend has it that it was decided ‘enough was enough.’ It is said that Lennart agreed to stop drinking two days before the game but if the team won by more than three goals, he was to be given two bottles of their finest Scotch, Inter agreed. Coach Foni had been accused of being overly defensive the season before but this season he decided to lift his foot off the breaks. Never was this exhibited or nor did it work as successfully as it did against Juventus on that April day.
Despite the enormity of the game the Nerazzurri attacked from the first whistle and on the seventh minute they were rewarded when Skoglund slotted home into an empty net after the Juventus keeper had been left for dead. The second goal saw the Swede execute a near post back heel that took out the entire Bianconeri defence allowing Gino Armano to slot home. With Juve now playing with ten men (Ermes Muccinelli was injured) the Nerazzurri became rampant and in the second half the goals reined in.
On 66 minutes Sergio Brighenti scored a well-placed volley before the superlative Swede scored again. Not to be outdone Brighenti then took the ball down brilliantly from a Skoglund cross and volleyed in his second goal before finally Fulvio Nesti got in on the act with a close range finish. It was a crushing blow to Juventus who ended up finishing second to Inter by a single point. This result had technically won the Nerazzurri the championship for the second year running and they had done it in style.
Skoglund finished this game with three assists and two goals and certainly earned his two bottles of Scotch. When asked about this at a later date he simply replied “I should have asked for four”, maybe he was right.
Richard Hall is an Italian Football writer who contributes to BTSport, ESPNFC, Guardian Sport, Football Italia, CalcioMercato.com, BeISportsUSA, SiriusXMFC.