Chapter 283 "Inter Milan clears the way to win the championship!"
After defeating Sporting Lisbon, everyone in Inter Milan breathed a sigh of relief.
After securing first place in the group in advance, the result of the last group match is no longer important.
Mancini is even prepared to send pure substitutes to Germany so that the main players can have a good rest.
With the start of the Italian Cup, Inter Milan has now begun to enter a three-line battle mode.
Since Inter Milan has won the Italian Cup twice in a row, they are not too obsessed with this honor.
In the first leg of the Italian Cup quarter-finals, Mancini arranged a pure substitute lineup to play. In the end, relying on these substitutes, Inter Milan won a narrow victory over Messina away from home and took the initiative to advance.
The next round of the quarter-finals is scheduled for November 11, just one week away.
Considering that the team has just finished playing in the Champions League and will go away to challenge Palermo, which is ranked second in the league, three days later, Mancini is still not planning to send too many main players to play this game. He will see the situation at that time and arrange a few substitutes to play. If they win, they will advance to the next round. If they lose, it will be regarded as reducing the burden on the team in advance.
Compared to the insignificant cup competition, Mancini is more concerned about the upcoming battle for the top spot in the league.
……
Palermo is not a traditional strong team in Serie A. In the 1960s and 1970s, they played in Serie A, but were later relegated to Serie B due to their lack of strength.
In 2002, Italian real estate developer Zamparini acquired the team and injected a large amount of capital into Palermo. Two years later, Palermo returned to the top league after 31 years.
Unlike other newly promoted teams, which had difficulty gaining a foothold in the top league, they quickly established themselves in Serie A, ranking sixth in the league that year. Since then, they have been rising steadily and have become a powerful team that cannot be underestimated in Serie A.
In this year's World Cup, the small team Palermo even sent four international players to the Italian national team, surpassing many traditional strong teams with profound heritage.
Although a large number of their stars were poached by other teams at high prices this summer, Palermo's performance has not declined but improved, and they have reached the second place in the league.
Before the twelfth round, they were even on par with Inter Milan in the standings, surpassing Roma, which also had a large number of stars.
But in recent rounds, Palermo's form has declined.
This is mainly due to their outstanding performance, which has made them the focus and research of many teams in the league.
When other teams studied their tactics and started to take targeted measures, Palermo's magic began to decline.
In the last round, when facing Cagliari, which is in the lower middle of the league, Palermo was in a sluggish state throughout the game. The players on the front line missed many opportunities. Instead, the opponent scored a goal in the melee in the second half, breaking Palermo's unbeaten record.
As a result, Inter Milan is the only unbeaten team in the entire Serie A.
As Inter Milan has already played against strong teams such as AC Milan and Roma, the only team that has a chance of defeating them in the first half of the league may be Palermo.
Mancini attaches great importance to this game, not only because the opponent is strong, but more importantly because Inter Milan's lineup is incomplete.
In this game, Inter Milan had three key players absent.
Midfield core Lin Feng and defensive general Materazzi are both out due to injuries, while Vieira faces suspension due to accumulating four yellow cards.
Vieira hasn't suffered any serious injuries this season, but he has missed a lot of games.
The main reason for his absence was that he received too many cards.
It may be because the penalty standards of Serie A referees are stricter than those of the Premier League, which led to some of Vieira's actions that he thought were reasonable confrontations being called fouls by the referee, and some fouls that he thought might be yellow cards were directly shown red cards by the referee.
In addition, Vieira himself had a hot temper and played as a defensive midfielder, which gave him a heavy defensive task. This led to him committing fouls frequently on the court and he was easily sent off.
So far this season, Vieira has received three red cards in the league and the Champions League, two of which were direct red cards. He leads the team in the number of red cards, and even Materazzi has to admit defeat.
But this is basic for Vieira. After all, he is the current record holder for red cards in the Premier League and the player with the most red cards in Arsenal's history.
For Inter Milan, the absence of these three players is equivalent to directly digging out their central axis, which has a huge impact on the team's strength.
In this match, Inter Milan is at most 60% to 70% of its strength. Even if Palermo's form has declined recently, there is still a great probability that they will beat Inter Milan at home.
The home team obviously knew that such an opportunity was unlikely to appear in the future, so they were eager to seize the opportunity.
However, there is an old Chinese saying that more haste makes waste.
The home team launched a massive attack at the start, but because of the emptiness in the backcourt, Inter Milan took the lead with a quick break.
In the 7th minute of the first half, Cruz received a long pass from Zanetti in the frontcourt, stopped the ball with his chest and passed it back. Torres followed up and shot the ball without waiting for it to stop, completing a volley.
The ball slipped into the goal from under the armpit of goalkeeper Fontana, the score became 0:1, and Inter Milan took the lead.
The more than 30,000 home fans at the Barbera Stadium were all stunned. Inter Milan's goal came too quickly and too suddenly, and they were not prepared at all.
Isn’t it said that Inter Milan is missing three key players and its strength has been greatly reduced?
Why did Inter Milan score the first goal?
Inter Milan is short of players, and the missing three players have indeed had a huge impact on the team.
But one thing has been overlooked. After being tied by Udinese away from home in the seventh round of the league, Inter Milan has won all of the last five league games, including a 5:3 away win over AC Milan.
If the Champions League and cup games are included, Inter Milan’s winning streak has reached 8 games!
The team's continuous victories on all fronts can easily build up momentum for the team and give the players more confidence.
Just like this game, even though Inter Milan's lineup was incomplete, even though it was at the opponent's home ground.
Their players on the field continued to play calmly. Facing the opponent's fierce attack at the beginning, Inter Milan did not panic at all. Instead, they were able to calmly seize the opportunity to counterattack the opponent, and they succeeded.
This is the benefit of winning before!
Victory can cover up many problems and even bring the team to above-average performance.
However, the home team was no pushover. After being unexpectedly led by their opponents, Palermo immediately launched a fierce counterattack.
But Inter's defense was also very good. Barzagli, a former Palermo player who replaced Materazzi in the starting lineup in this game, performed particularly well on the back line.
While the opponent kept passing the ball through the wing and trying to find opportunities, he and Samuel firmly controlled the air supremacy above the penalty area and did not leave any chance for the opponent.
Seeing Barzagli perform so well, the home team's fans were so angry!
This guy, why is he so excited when he meets his old boss? It's as if his old boss treated him unfairly!
Inter Milan's solid defense made the home team's attacks futile time and time again. As the first half of the game entered the injury time, both sides were ready to focus on the second half of the game.
The unexpected result occurred!
In the last few seconds of injury time, Palermo had a throw-in.
The referee was already looking at his watch, apparently planning to blow the whistle to end the first half after the opposing team threw the ball out of bounds.
This affected the judgment of Inter Milan players and made them relax their vigilance.
As a result, the opponent threw the ball into the penalty area with a powerful out-of-bounds kick.
Bresciano headed the ball in the penalty area, and Amauri shot with the outside of his foot in front of the goal and scored the ball into the lower right corner of the goal.
The score was tied in the last second of the first half!
Some Inter Milan players could not accept the unexpected loss of the ball and ran to protest to the referee, believing that the injury time had ended and the opponent's goal should be cancelled.
But the referee ignored it. The injury time is not fixed. If the opponent has a threatening attack, he can make the decision freely and give the opponent more time to complete the attack.
If Inter Milan had defended against the opponent's attack just now, he would definitely have stopped the game, but Inter Milan couldn't hold on, so it can't be blamed on him.
Mancini was originally very satisfied with the team's performance in the first half, but because of the goal conceded in the final stage, his face turned livid.
These guys, the game hasn't even ended yet, yet they dared to be distracted and make such low-level mistakes!
This is no longer an ordinary mistake, it is a huge mistake that must be dealt with severely, even with a hair dryer!
In the locker room, Mancini did nothing after coming in. He used a hair dryer to blow dry all the players for five minutes before he stopped.
Everyone lowered their heads, not daring to look him in the eye.
I deserve to be scolded for conceding a goal like this. No one will stand up and make things difficult for me at this time.
However, this goal also alerted Inter Milan's players that their opponent is strong and they cannot be complacent, otherwise they will definitely learn a lesson.
So after the start of the second half, Inter Milan players were more focused and played more actively and proactively.
In the 61st minute, Torres got the ball on the center line and got rid of two defenders. He passed the ball to the left at the front of the penalty area. Grosso followed up with a shot, and the ball went straight into the dead corner. The goalkeeper tried his best but failed to save the ball.
The fans of the home team were numb. Before, it was Barzagli who blocked and disrupted their goals time and time again, but now it was Grosso, the old player, who struck back.
You guys have discussed this beforehand, right?
When Grosso was in Palermo, he could only score one goal in a season. But in this game against his old club, he scored a goal. How can this be justified?
It’s strange to say, it seems that many players are in very good shape when facing their old clubs. I don’t know why.
After Inter Milan took the lead again, the home team tried their best to equalize but failed.
Inter Milan's defense did not make the same mistakes as in the first half and kept the score until the final whistle.
"Inter Milan clears the way to win the championship!"
This was the front-page headline of Italian Football after the game.
Compared to them, the report of Gazzetta dello Sport is much more subtle:
After defeating Palermo away, Inter Milan defended its position as the leader of the league. Although Roma won a big victory over Sampdoria away, the points gap between the two teams has been widened to 4 points.
The four-point gap may not seem big, but Inter Milan did not face any tough battles in the first half.
AC Milan, Palermo, Roma, Fiorentina and Lazio's games are all away and concentrated in the first half, which is not friendly to Inter Milan.
Fortunately, Inter Milan has already won four of the five difficult away games, and the remaining opponents are of average strength. Having won six consecutive games, they will most likely continue to win.
In the second half, Inter Milan will have a greater chance of winning when facing these strong opponents when they return to their home ground.
In this case, it will be very difficult for Roma to catch up.
If their performance is not stable enough, the gap between the two teams may even be widened further.
It is no wonder that the outside world would make such a voice. Anyone standing from Inter Milan’s perspective would feel that Inter Milan’s situation is very good.
However, facing the outside world's flattery, Mancini, who almost lost his position as coach at the beginning of the season, behaved very low-key at this time.
At the post-match press conference, Mancini said that the competition among the top three teams will continue until the end, and he felt that the outside world should not ignore the resilience of teams such as Roma and Palermo.
After Mancini's interview was reported, fans of Roma and Palermo felt very useful.
It is an honor in itself to be recognized by your opponents.
But one team that was ignored was not so happy!
Milan fans expressed their anger:
"Although AC Milan was penalized and fell behind other teams at the start, how dare Mancini underestimate AC Milan? Do you believe that the Rossoneri will catch up from now on and pull Inter Milan down from the leading position?"
AC Milan once staged a stunning comeback in the 98-99 season of the last century.
At that time, they were as much as 13 points behind the top team, but AC Milan fought back and miraculously won the league championship that season.
This is also the biggest score difference reversal in the history of Serie A and even the top five leagues.
After seeing the comments from Milan fans, Inter fans silently checked the league rankings.
When they saw that AC Milan had only 11 points, ranking fourth from the bottom in the league, they could no longer hold back.
"Inter Milan now has 33 points, while AC Milan has only 11 points. Do you mean that Milan can achieve a stunning comeback when they are 22 points behind?"
"Wow, if AC Milan can do this, it will be unprecedented and there will probably be no one who can do it in the future!"
"Indeed, a team that has the potential to win the championship will not be that far behind. A team that is that far behind has no chance of winning the championship!"
"It's not that we don't believe it, we just want to broaden our horizons. Why don't you, the Milan fans, go and persuade Ancelotti to forget about the Champions League and go all out in the league so that he can break the record of the top five leagues as soon as possible!"
(End of this chapter)
