Italian journalist Ivan Zazzaroni believes that Inter will not face a real test of their capabilities in Serie A until they travel to Rome to face Lazio on Friday.
Writing in his column in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Corriere dello Sport, Zazzaroni argued that the Nerazzurri’s season will really kick off when they meet an opponent who are relatively close to them in quality in the form of the Biancocelesti.
Inter’s first two matches in Serie A this season have been fixtures that they’ve been broadly expected to win, first travelling to Apulia to face newly-promoted Lecce and then, yesterday evening, hosting relative top flight minnows Spezia at the San Siro.
The Nerazzurri got the job done on both occasions, with yesterday evening’s 3-0 win particularly convincing, but at this stage of the campaign they have not yet been seen in action against one of Serie A’s heavy hitters.
That will all change in less than a week’s time, with the Nerazzurri facing Lazio at the Stadio Olimpico on Friday in a match that will be, on paper, much more demanding than the two that they’ve faced so far.
Zazzaroni writes of yesterday’s win that “The match was straightforward enough that it allowed the Inter players as well as the crowd in attendance at the San Siro to have an enjoyable evening out.”
“Despite Spezia’s willpower shown, the gulf between the two sides was painfully clear,” he goes on. “It’s an almost brutal gap that Gotti’s work could not have reduced – when one team stronger in technique, experience, and physicality comes up against an only organized opponent, the organized opponent is still going to be knocked over in the end.”
Zazzaroni argues that “Lautaro and Lukaku made up for a large part of Inter’s superiority not only over Spezia, but over at least twelve of Serie A’s nineteen other teams, their beautiful goal a product of some textbook linkup play.”
He continues that “Inter’s season really begins, therefore, on Friday the 26th against Sarri’s Lazio – the Olimpico will be the first real test for Inzaghi, who won yesterday without getting out of second gear.”
