Article 93 — Inter and United Advance To The Last 8 of the Europa League
Inter and Manchester United both played on the same morning at the same time again. The choice was easier this time. United was already 5–0 up from the first leg, 5 away goals I might add. It would have taken an almighty slip-up for United to lose this. I was confident we should see through the second leg and go through.
Inter, on the other hand, didn’t have the luxury of a first leg. The first leg didn’t take place due to the outbreak of Corona Virus in Italy so this was the first knockout match to be played in neutral Germany in the Europa League.
This is how the matches went:
Getafe was expected to be tough customers, robust and aggressive. I was expecting them to play in atypical Spanish fashion, hitting more direct long balls so I was surprised by the start they made. Stefan de Vrij lost the ball in centre circle after his foray forward. Getafe intercepted him in centre midfield and hit us on the counter-attack, they put in a dangerous cross but no-one was on hand to capitalise. That set the tone to the start of the game. They went closer with their next attack when Nemanja Maksimovic’s header was brilliantly saved by Samir Handanovic.
That was as good as it got for Getafe in terms of shots on target and testing Handanovic. They had a good spell, pinning us back and played with higher intensity than us. We were struggling to get out of our half in that spell of the opening 15 minutes. There was a lot of hard running by Getafe who looked hungrier and fresher than us but none of the direct, long balls that I was expecting.
I was worried if this was going to be the pattern of the game or if we will show mental resilience to weather the storm, take the sting out of the game and take the game to our opponents. We did the latter and the first shot we had on target was by Lautaro Martinez and it was well-saved by David Soria. All of a sudden, Soria got busier. The next save he had to make was from Martinez too. From having 0 attempts on goal, Inter had 2 in quick succession. We were keeping possession better and had more of a presence in the Getafe half.
Shortly after, a long ball from Alessandro Bastoni was nicely measured for Romelu Lukaku to run through. He held off his marker and placed an accurate shot past Soria to give us the lead. A great goal all around.
We played better in the second half and again we forced Soria into action. Handanovic had to pull out the stops one last time in the second half. He was called into action to keep out a header from Jaime Mata. As long as Inter didn’t score a second goal and kill off the tie, Getafe always had a chance. Lukaku had a great chance to do just that but missed horribly from a very good position.
Inter got a scare when Jason’s cross for his fellow substitute, Jorge Molina was picked up on the VAR to have struck the arm of Diego Godin. A penalty was awarded, Molina took the penalty and missed. Inter got a lifeline.
On the counter-attack, Christian Eriksen laid the ball on to Danilo D’Ambrosio. He made a mess of the cross but thankfully the ball dropped to Eriksen who scored within a minute of coming on to seal the tie for us.
I felt Inter displayed great maturity and mental strength to weather the storm and get back into the game without panicking. At present, it looks like Danilo D’Ambrosio is preferred to Antonio Candreva in the right wing-back position while Diego Godin is getting the nod ahead of Milan Skriniar. While I have always appreciated D’Ambrosio as a player, I feel Candreva is a better player going forward.
Defensively, we were solid again as we kept our 5th clean sheet in a row. Handanovic showed his quality to keep us in the game, something that he has done many times in the past for us. The trio of Godin, de Vrij and Bastoni is at present our most in-form defensive trio. Godin is showing all his experience and quality now after a less than impressive start to life at Inter. De Vrij was named the Best Defender in Serie A and his performances and consistency this season justify that as did his performance this morning. Bastoni is looking like a real gem. He is still a young player and is developing so he can only get better. Besides his defensive attributes, what I like about him is his willingness to come forward with the ball and his attempts at being a defensive playmaker.
Conte created the defensive playmaker role with Leonardo Bonucci at Juventus so Bastoni has the ideal coach to work with in terms of his development. In terms of keeping possession, I felt the team could have done better in the retention of the ball as we played some aimless long balls from defence. In midfield too we were guilty of not being precise enough in possession. Roberto Gagliardini, a player hated by Inter fans on social media put in a good shift, covering a lot of ground but looks slow on the ball and comes out second best in getting to the ball.
Lautaro Martinez was meted the roughest treatment by the Getafe players as he was bodychecked, tackled and elbowed once. Amazingly, a lot of fouls were not given, some remarkable decisions by the English referee. Lukaku became the first player since Samuel Eto’o in 2010–11 to reach 30 goals in a campaign and is having an outstanding campaign. The miss was also unfortunately typical Lukaku and these are areas for him to still improve on. Alexis Sanchez came on and had a great chance to score our third but fluffed an attempted lob.
On Sanchez, it was confirmed by Beppe Marotta that an agreement has been reached between Manchester United and Inter for his permanent transfer which was also confirmed by Manchester United’s manager, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer. At the moment, we are unaware of the details of the deal but it’s a perfect situation for all concerned. Sanchez looks like a renewed and happier player at Inter, Inter is happy to keep him on and he had a torrid time at United who has moved on to find other solutions in the attack that fit the way they want to play. Win-win for all parties.
On our manager Antonio Conte, he dropped a bombshell at the end of a good win against Atalanta. It might be his reaction to finishing second in the league but he needs to be aware as well that Inter finished second because of him too. The club can perhaps improve in affording more protection. We are not sure exactly who his ire is aimed at. At the moment, the situation doesn’t look solved either even though he has backtracked to reiterate his commitment to the project. Maybe the owners reminding him how much he is earning has something to do with that. He talks about creating a stable, winning environment at Inter but he cannot keep flying off the handle when things go wrong. That is the opposite of creating stability. Everything cannot be perfect the way he wants it to be and he needs to adapt to what he has. The club has been fully supportive of him by providing him with signings in two transfer windows at the club. It doesn’t help him too if he is slow in making substitutions as he did this morning. Luckily for all of us, it had no effect on the result. There is still more to this story at the end of Inter’s Europa League campaign.
Speaking about United, we came from behind to beat LASK late on 2–1. Anthony Martial got off the bench to score the winner while Jesse Lingard was amongst the goals again scoring United’s equaliser after LASK took the lead with a howitzer from Philipp Wiesinger. United would now go on to face FC Copenhagen coached by Solksjaer’s good friend and former international team-mate, Stale Solbakken in Germany on Tuesday morning here. United have also scored the most number of goals in this season’s Europa League campaign with the two goals they scored this morning, bringing their tally to 23. With the introduction of youth player, Teden Mengi, Solksjaer equalled a 67-year-old mark set by Sir Matt Busby of giving a first-team debut to eight Academy players during a season.
At the same time, Inter will play against either Bayer Leverkusen or Glasgow Rangers. At the moment, it looks more likely to be the former rather than the latter. Which match do I watch? Both equally important, tough choices but life is about making choices.
