Inter Milan through to Champions League final after Martínez sinks AC Milan

Inter Milan 1 AC Milan 0 (3-0 on aggregate)

For Inter Milan, the road to Istanbul was paved with bad intentions. The exuberance and colour of their first-leg victory gave way to something darker and grittier here: not so much a semi-final as a turf war, the sort of game that is to be endured rather than enjoyed. Here their great city rivals were snuffed out, dismantled piece by piece, and finally picked off via a goal by Lautaro Martínez. Milan is theirs. But the greatest prize of all remains tantalisingly within reach.

Simone Inzaghi’s side will probably go into the final on June 10th as one of the least fancied Champions League contenders in recent history. And from the English perspective there is perhaps a tendency to gaze upon their wrought and wizened collection of Premier League jetsam and wonder just how they got this far. But there is also real conviction and real quality here: men of skill and steel, who over 180 minutes simply stood taller, made the braver decisions, produced the decisive moments when they were required. Milan, by contrast, were a crashing disappointment: a team with 57 per cent possession but not the slightest idea of what to do with it, a team of too many makeweights and too few leaders.

The return of Rafael Leão offered Milan not merely a skittish, instinctive outlet on the left wing but the hope that things might just be different this time. Certainly Inter seemed particularly wary of the threat posed by Leão and Theo Hernández on that flank, with Denzel Dumfries a little more selective in his forward bursts and Matteo Darmian at centre-back also quick to squeeze the space. Not until the 38th minute that Leão had his first real sight of goal, putting Darmian on his backside and singeing a shot past Andre Onana’s far post.

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Last week’s first-half collapse continued to hang over the tie like a narrator, both sides sensing the importance of the next goal. There were several half-chances for Inter in that first half and one very good chance for Milan: Onana saving a weak shot from Brahim Díaz after Sandro Tonali had muscled himself to the left byline. Beyond that it was a whole lot of so-what: Milan attacks without the requisite speed or imagination to trouble a well-drilled Inter defence for whom the veteran Francesco Acerbi – a former Milan player and cancer survivor – was exquisite.

And when Inter got the ball, the field seemed to open out for them in the way it did not for their opponents. They were unchanged, but within that supple, ductile 3-5-2 system they can vary so much. Here Nicolo Barella played a more aggressive role than he had in the first leg, making late runs into the box, trying to latch on to the second balls from Martínez and Edin Dzeko. But it was Dzeko who would enjoy Inter’s best chance of the half, flicking on a free-kick and forcing Mike Maignan to scrabble the ball brilliantly away from goal.

On the touchline Stefano Pioli, dressed immaculately in a suit and trainers like a man intending to run home from work, raged at the unfairness of it all. This has been a dispiriting campaign for Milan, with their Serie A title defence crumbling after the winter break and now even the top four looking like a faint hope. This semi-final represented his last chance of salvaging something from the season, and now it too was beginning to slip away from him.

Meanwhile Inter were continuing to win all the key battles. The game turned a little scrappy in the second half, dead ends begetting dead ends, wrestles begetting wrestles, lots of long low-percentage balls into the channels. Dzeko’s backside was running the game, at least until Inzaghi decided to substitute it for Romelu Lukaku’s backside. The Curva Nord beat out a frightening tribal rhythm. It felt like a countdown.

Finally, with 15 minutes remaining, the bomb went off. Inter worked the ball into the Milan area virtually unchallenged, Lukaku and Martínez and Robin Gosens all exchanging it as easily as if this were their back garden. Eventually the ball came to Martínez, who jammed the ball in at Maignan’s near post before running over to the advertising hoardings and standing atop them like a god on a pedestal. For the first time in weeks Inter could breathe, a gasp of air that felt as fresh and life-affirming as the very first.

Will Pep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti be enduring any sleepless nights at the sight of this? Probably not. But then this is a club that has always done its best work in the shadow of doubt, that is most dangerous at the moment when you dare to write it off. Internazionale are not the world’s greatest football team, but they know who they are and they know what their jobs are. As the flags waved triumphantly, a banner in the curva nord toasted gli amici che non di son piu: friends who are no longer with us. By contrast, it feels like one of the European Cup’s oldest friends has risen from its slab. – Guardian