Inter Milan vs. Juventus: Winners and Losers from Coppa Italia
Juventus arrived at the San Siro on Wednesday on the strength of a 3-0 win over Inter Milan in the first leg of their Coppa Italia semi-final. All they needed to do was hold that lead. Score a goal away from home, and they would force Inter to score five. Given the way Juve dominated Inter in league play at the weekend, Juve were expected to cruise through.
But as the poet Robert Burns said, "The best-laid plans of mice and men go oft awry."
Massimiliano Allegri got his tactics wrong from the get-go, and Inter took advantage of a questionable call by referee Andrea Gervasoni to get into the game early. Another early one in the second half breathed real life into the tie, and when Gervasoni pointed to the spot with eight minutes left, Inter completed their improbable comeback to force extra time.
An ill-tempered affair full of yellow cards and cramping legs ended up going to penalties after Pablo Carrizo pulled a fantastic double save against Alvaro Morata in the game's last 10 seconds.
When the chips went down, the winning mentality fostered at Juve for the last four years finally shone through. All five of their penalty-takers buried their shots, while Rodrigo Palacio put Inter's second into the crossbar. The Nerazzurri protested, but Gervasoni confidently pointed to his watch, assuring them that the San Siro's goal-line technology had indicated that the ball did not cross the line.
Let's take a look at some of the winners and losers in a wild and wacky game.
Winner: Roberto Mancini
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Roberto Mancini wasn't expected to turn the tie around after Juve so dominated the first leg, but he did need his team to show some spark.
Since the start of the new year, Inter has only won three league games and four times overall, falling from first to fifth. After six months to adjust to getting back on the Inter bench and an entire summer to remake the team the way he wanted it, Inter are going backward, not forward, and if they miss out on European competition entirely, it will rightly be Mancini who takes responsibility.
According to La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Football Italia), the man who won three titles with Inter in the mid-2000s needs to win four of his next five league games in order to keep his job, and he was expected to have his team at least play competitively on Wednesday.
Compete they did. The team's core weakness—the extreme lack of creativity in midfield—remained, but they took the opportunities that came to them and pressed Juve to the absolute limit by forcing extra time and then penalties.
Though his team couldn't make the final push in the shootout, it was a commendable effort and maybe the much-needed shot in the arm that this team needs to get out of the doldrums and protect their place in the top five.
Loser: Massimiliano Allegri
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Max Allegri's flirtation with the 4-4-2 needs to end, and it needs to end now.
The system has been used three times since the beginning of February, and three times Juve have been unimpressive, especially going forward. Against Napoli, the Bianconeri couldn't break down the defense and only won when Simone Zaza found the net with a massive deflection. Against Bayern Munich, Juve's attack was nonexistent for the first hour and only emerged when Allegri changed tack.
This 4-4-2 is robbing Juve of any dynamism in attack. The central midfielders are usually too far away to support the strikers once possession is gained. By the time they get to a place where they can help, the ball's already heading the other way. The wide players can either try to run the channels or play wide, but they can't do both—and there are usually enough defenders to cover them whichever route they chose.
At the start of the game, it stood to be seen whether the inclusion of Kwadwo Asamoah—a player who can man wide areas more naturally than Paul Pogba, whose instinct is to come back inside—would make the formation better, but its problems still remained. Attackers weren't supported, and Juve relied increasingly on long balls to try to attack.
Allegri got the tactics of this game all wrong, and it wasn't until Inter started knocking on the door at 2-0 that he sent Andrea Barzagli on and set the team up in a 3-5-2. That was an improvement, but even that couldn't stop the penalty for the equalizer.
Allegri came into this game knowing scoring any goal at all would force Inter to score at least five times themselves. Instead of going for that goal, he did exactly what he did against Bayern—soaked up so much pressure that in the end the team had to give. This time, his changes didn't do the job. Juve gained the momentum in the extra 30 minutes, but they weren't able to put the ball into the net.
Allegri's performance in this match was simply unacceptable on every level.
Winner: Marcelo Brozovic
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Croatian midfielder Brozovic was predatory on Wednesday. He breathed life into the tie by scoring just over a quarter of an hour in. It may have been ill-gotten—Gary Medel gained the ball from Hernanes with a body slam worthy of a WWE ring—but when he was presented the opportunity, he took it with aplomb.
He did the same when he was given the opportunity to put the aggregate into a flat-footed tie from the spot. Neto guessed the right way, but the ball was simply too powerful.
It was an excellent performance from a player Inter has needed to find a groove.
Loser: Norberto Neto
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Norberto Neto hasn't gotten all that much in the way of playing time this year, but as tends to be tradition at Juve, the Coppa Italia has been his competition.
He hadn't really been tested in Juve's first three games in this competition, but he made a critical error on Inter's second goal. Eder was driving down the left side, and the nature of his run really gave him only one option—he had to cross. Rather than coming out to meet the delivery, though, the Brazilian glued himself to his line, and when the cross came through to Ivan Perisic, the ball was over the line before he could turn around.
Neto had to charge down the delivery on that play. If he had missed the cross, the result would have been the same. But he certainly wasn't going to be stopping a shot from that kind of range. Coming out and dealing with the service before it got there was the best chance of preventing a goal. It was a bad decision.
He wasn't able to make up for it later either. He faced down a pair of Marcelo Brozovic penalties, both in regular time and in the shootout, and guessed right both times—and was beaten both times. He didn't make any saves in the shootout—it was the frame that bailed him out in the end.
Neto is never going to be surpassing Gianluigi Buffon any time soon, but this was the first time he's legitimately hurt the team in goal. He certainly didn't build much good will in this game.
Winner: Leonardo Bonucci
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With Gianluigi Buffon resting as usual in the Coppa and Giorgio Chiellini and Claudio Marchisio both resting injured legs, Allegri handed the captain's armband to Leonardo Bonucci. He did right by it.
Bonucci played hard all night. He was one of the few Juve players who truly acquitted himself well over 120 minutes. He defended well, making two tackles and, according to WhoScored.com, six interceptions and seven clearances.
When it was time for someone to come up and take Juve's fifth and final kick, with a trip to the final on the line, it was Bonucci who sauntered up and confidently dispatched the kick, sending Carrizo the wrong way and sending Juve to their third Coppa Final in three years.
It was a leader's performance from a man who just may end up wearing that armband permanently sometime down the line.
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