Inter head coach Simone Inzaghi feels that the decision to disallow AC Milan’s goal against his team in the second half of their 3-0 win in the Coppa Italia appears to be a correct one.
Speaking in a press conference after the match, as reported by FCInterNews, Inzaghi gave the view that Rossoneri defender Pierre Kalulu had been in the eye-line of Nerazzurri captain Samir Handanovic while offside, preventing him from making a save.
Milan had thought that they’d pulled a goal back during the second half of the Coppa Italia semi-final second leg, which would have been very significant as at 2-1 they would need to score only one more goal to go through to the final on away goals.
However, the VAR carefully examined the scene in which Milan midfielder Ismael Bennacer had drilled a long-range effort into the bottom corner, and concluded that Kalulu had impeded Handanovic.
There was no shortage of protestations from the Rossoneri players and bench, but in Inzaghi’s view the correct decision was made.
Asked about the decision, he said that “I haven’t seen the video back yet. They showed me a still image, you can see that Handanovic moves his neck because he was impeded by a Milan player [Kalulu]. I’ve not even seen the goals back.”
Asked whether he feels that the team have come full circle from their derby loss to Milan in February, the coach said that “More than that, I’d like to focus on an important match that we wanted to win, so we could reach the final.”
“It’s an important message to send against a top side who’ve created problems for us, including this evening,” he added.
On whether this could be further boost in momentum for the team’s Serie A campaign, Inzaghi stated that “I think we need to split the competitions, league and cup.”
“Obviously it can give US confidence, it comforts me to have seen the substitutes play well with conviction and determination,” he added.
“Now with every match a final for us, we must do well to recover mentally and physically,” the coach said.
Of goalscoring hero Lautaro Martinez, he said that “He’s been very good, he’s never been a problem, there are periods where he always scores and others when he scores less.”
“Lauti is where he needs to be with goals scored in all competitions,” he said, “now he must not give up and keep on like this.”
“Winning helps us win more,” Inzaghi said, “it was what we wanted, we know what we’ve given and we wanted this final.”
On winning his first Milan derby as Nerazzurri coach, Inzaghi joked that “It was great, I waited for it to be sold out.”
“It is the first time we’ve played at 100% capacity, we have given the fans a lot to celebrate this year, including the Supercoppa,” he added.
“The path is still long from now until the end,” the coach stressed.
On how his team have performed so far this season, he said that “I give them very high marks, we know the problems we had in July when we lost fundamental players.”
“We’re happy because we’ve achieved something that the club hasn’t for some time, now we want to do well in the league too, chasing Milan ahead of us,” he added.
