Inter have little excuse not to find a way to reach the quarterfinals of the Champions League from their round of sixteen tie against Porto.
This is the view of today’s print edition of Milan-based newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, who argue that Italian teams in general will have the pressure to take advantage of a favourable draw and make an impression in the knockout stages of Europe’s top competition.
Porto are hardly a team that Inter will underestimate in their upcoming round of sixteen clashes, particularly given that the Portuguese champions topped a group containing Club Brugge, Bayer Leverkusen, and Atletico Madrid.
However, there is no getting around the fact that the Nerazzurri have avoided some of the real heavy hitters in the competition with the draw and instead been pitted against a team whom they are superior to on paper.
The same is true of Serie A rivals Napoli, who avoided Paris Saint-Germain to draw Eintracht Frankfurt, and AC Milan who like Inter avoided the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, and Real Madrid to face the comparatively weaker Tottenham Hotspur.
In none of these cases will the Italian teams be underestimating the quality of their opposition, who have proved how strong they are to reach this point.
However, in the view of the Gazzetta, the teams have been handed a real opportunity by the luck of the draw by avoiding tougher draws, and there is no excuse for them to pass it up.
