When Inter faced Chievo Verona at the Marc’Antonio Bentegodi during the 2003-04 season, the team was in the middle of recovering from a disastrous run of form.
Alberto Zaccheroni had just replaced Hector Cuper on the bench after the season got off to a rocky start. Inter had only won two games through seven rounds in Serie A and in that stretch they had only managed to score from open play three times.
Despite the historic 3-0 win against Arsenal at Highbury during the group stage of the UEFA Champions League, Cuper was replaced by Zaccheroni due to poor performance in the league.
As round eight of Serie A came around, Inter were looking for their first win in five matches and their first against Chievo at the Bentegodi, who were one point ahead of Nerazzurri in the standings.
Having earned their first ever promotion to Serie A ahead of the 2000-01 season, Chievo were enjoying their third season in top flight and had already gotten a taste of European Football by qualifying for Europa League during their first season in the league.
And having only lost to Inter once in their previous four meetings, they were confident of continuing their successful run against the Nerazzurri.
At kick-off, Inter were lined up in a 4-5-1 formation with Bobo Vieri as the focal point in attack.
The midfield five was formed by Recoba, Matias Almeyda, Cristiano Zanetti, Franceco Coco and Emre Belozoglu, and the defence featured Cordoba, Materazzi, Cannavaro and Javier Zanetti, with Francesco Toldo in goal.
To counter the visitors, Luigi Delneri had Chievo starting in a 4-4-2 formation with Luca Marchegiani in goal and Lorenzo D’Anna, Luigi Sala, Salvatore Lanna, Fabio Moro in defence. The midfield quartet included Franco Semioli, Roberto Baronio, Simone Perrotta and Mario Santana, while Amauri and Federico Cossato spearheaded the attack.
Right from the start, the strategy for both sides was evident. Chievo were strictly playing on the counter and creating a defensive wall of ten men in front of goal. Their counters were flowing through winger Mario Santana and targeting Amauri in the center.
For the visitors, Vieri was the focal point of the attack, and often found himself double and triple-teamed anytime he touched the ball. To get pressure off him, Recoba made several driving runs inside the box, cutting in from the right wing on his lethal left foot.
Both Vieri and Recoba came close several times with Recoba striking often from distance, who had a shot ricochet off the bar.
As the match approached half-time, on a rare counter-attack opportunity for Inter, Vieri received a long pass from the left wing and went through on goal before being taken out by Chievo keeper Marchegiani outside the penalty box.
Vieri being the last man on goal, that meant a straight red card for Marchegiani for denying a clear goal scoring opportunity. However from the following free-kick, Inter failed to capitalize as score remained 0-0 at half-time.
When second half got underway both sides made offensive changes, with Chievo bringing on Sergio Pellissier in attack and Inter going to a two striker formation, replacing Matias Almeyda with Obafemi Martins. The substitution immediately paid dividends, as the pace of Martins was a constant threat and took away defenders from Vieri and allowed him more space to operate inside the box.
Chievo continued to play strictly on the counter, however the defensive duo of Cannavaro and Materazzi kept Pellissier and Amauri off the scoring sheet as neither attacker managed to create a clear opportunity.
After 64 minutes the breakthrough finally came for Inter as Vieri put Inter 1-0 up, heading in the ball to bottom left corner after a Recoba cross from the left wing.
The half-time substitution of Martins allowed Vieri enough space to out-muscle his defenders and finally put the Nerazzurri ahead.
After conceding the goal, Chievo were a bit more aggressive and started coming out of their half in numbers to try and score the goal that would salvage a draw. However all that did was leave more space behind for the Vieri-Recoba duo, which allowed Inter to add a second.
With 67 minutes gone, after a quick passing sequence through the middle between Recoba and Vieri, Bobo burst into the box and crossed the ball to far left post for a wide open Recoba, who comfortably scored his first goal of the season.
Inter thus walked away from Bentegodi with a 2-0 victory and got their very first win in Verona against Chievo.
This also started a fantastic run of form for the Nerazzurri, where the team won six straight games – including the all important Derby d’Italia – and got back into the hunt for the European spots.
