Expectations were high on the first Derby Della Madonnina of the season as AC Milan hosted bitter rivals Inter Milan.
Despite their disastrous pre-season campaign, the Rossoneri managed to impress in their season opener away against Siena as Ronaldinho and Alexandre Pato led the team to victory.
The Nerazzurri, however, were anything but impressive in their first as newcomers Bari came to visit. José Mourinho’s men struggled against a side that was ready to fight for survival and walked away from the fixture with a disappointing 1-1 draw.
The atmosphere at the San Siro was electrifying as almost 80,000 spectators waited for the highly anticipated derby to get underway.
Milan coach Leonardo was, however, in for a nightmarish evening as Inter steamrolled the “home” team by a humiliating 4-0 scoreline after goals by Thiago Motta, Diego Milito (on penalty courtesy of Gennaro Gattuso), Maicon and Dejan Stankovic.
To make things even worse, Gattuso was sent off while awaiting substitution only 35 minutes into the game, leaving his already mentally defeated team mates one man down for over an hour.
First half
The Rossoneri had undergone massive changes during the summer and the team entered the pitch without important key players such as former captain Paolo Maldini and playmaker Ricardo Kaká as well as tactician Carlo Ancelotti.
The Nerazzurri, on the other hand, were missing their Swede superstar Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Newcomer Wesley Sneijder, who had completed his move to Inter less than 24 hours ago, was thrown into the hot air right from the get go by Mourinho, who previous to the game had insisted the Dutchman wouldn’t make his debut in the prestigious derby.
The game got off to massive cheers from the crowd and the former Real Madrid-man wasn’t late to unleash one his notorious long distance shots which brought out a fantastic save by Marco Storari in the Milan goal as he tipped the ball over the crossbar.
The “home” team enjoyed a nice spell with a lot of possession as the game got underway and Alexandre Pato looked extremely lively in the early stages of the fixture.
The same could, however, not be said for his countryman Ronaldinho, who despite all the hype surrounding him due to his opening game against Siena, just seemed unable to repeat the impressive performance.
The deadlock was broken 30 minutes into the game by Thiago Motta. Samuel Eto’o combined brilliantly with Diego Milito before the latter set the midfielder through, allowing him to slot it into the far corner and thus handing the “away” team an invaluable lead.
About five minutes later, Milito doubled the lead from 11 yards after Eto’o was taken down in the box by Gennaro Gattuso, also resulting in the latter being shown the yellow card for his troubles.
Unluckily for Milan, the hot-headed Italian was far from done. On 38 minutes, Gattuso signaled for a substitution due to an earlier knock but as Clarence Seedorf was receiving his final instructions before entering the pitch, the midfielder fouled Sneijder and was shown his second yellow card for the evening.
This left Milan behind with only ten men for the remainder of the game.
Milan’s misery was, however, far from over as Maicon (benefiting of their numerical advantage) deservedly added a third on stoppages after being played through beautifully by Milito.
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