Legendary former Inter, Roma, Real Madrid, and Sampdoria forward Antonio Cassano feels that the Nerazzurri were fortunate to reach the quarterfinals of the Champions League based on how they played against Porto yesterday.
Speaking on Christian Vieri’s Twitch channel, via FCInterNews, the former forward criticized Inter’s defensive style of play in the Champions League round of sixteen second leg, and also criticized the performance of striker Lautaro Martinez and argued that Simone Inzaghi should be sacked as coach.
Inter certainly did not play their most attack-minded match of the season at the Estadio do Dragao.
The Nerazzurri’s all-hand-on-deck defensive approach was enough to get the job done against a tough Porto side, as the clean sheet was preserved and with it their one-goal advantage from the first leg.
However, as far as Cassano is concerned, it was not an approach that he liked to see, and they were lucky to get away with it.
“Over the two legs, Porto deserved to go through,” Cassano argued.
“Inter are a much stronger team on paper, Porto don’t have big names players,” he went on.
“In these matches you have to keep the tempo high and have a lot of quality.”
“But they just played the long ball, see what happens,” Cassano said of the Nerazzurri’s approach.
“At this level, it’s hard if you don’t have real top-class players who make the difference.
Cassano noted that “If Onana doesn’t make that big save at the end, then it would’ve went to extra time.”
“Now they’ll try to pass Inzaghi off as someone who’s achieved some great feat, but that’s not the case, not even remotely,” Cassano didn’t mince words.
“Against Barcelona he had nothing to lose and he went for it, they played a great match.”
“Against a much weaker team, who were also lower in quality than themselves, Inter only came to play a defensive match.”
“It was an ugly Inter who got lucky, they went through but it’s not going to be enough in the next round, you only get lucky once,” Cassano predicted.
The former forward continued that “There will be big headlines in all the newspapers, but Inzaghi will be sacked in May.”
“He thinks he’s written a piece of history by reaching the quarter-finals? If that’s what the coach is saying then you see why he’s not a great coach, he can’t think that way, it puts a limit on what he can do.”
“He’s not a great coach who can lead Inter to great things,” Cassano argued.
“He’s got the strongest squad in the league but they’re doing poorly.”
“Inzaghi has a lot of growth that he needs to do, or else he’ll end up like Allegri or Mourinho,” Cassano argued.
