Inter v Atalanta: Zzzzzzzzzz.

By: Martha | November 24th, 2007

Inter gol Ok, here’s a question: If your team is up by a goal and has been under pressure pretty much the entire second half, is the 87th minute the time to give a central defender who has been hurt all season his debut? And to put him on the pitch for a mid, sending your entire defense into chaos? Yeah, I didn’t think so. This, my friends, is why Roberto Mancini gets the big bucks: Marco Materazzi for Olivier Dacourt with three minutes, left, leaving Cristian Chivu running around in the midfield (probably more for fun that because someone told him to) and the backline a giant clusterfucker. Christ almighty.

Inter did, however, manage to survive, securing a boring 2-1 win over an Atalanta side who were very much the better team in the second half, dominating the midfield for long stretches and creating a lot of attacks that were stopped by a valiant-if-ragged Inter defense — a little bit more confidence and killer instinct in front of goal, and they’d have caused Julio Cesar all kids of trouble.

Much of Inter’s team were understandably tired from international duty, and it showed — Esteban Cambiasso, of all people, was responsible for a lot of the giveaways in the second half, and even Mr. Perfect, Javier Zanetti, had moments during which he looked very ordinary indeed. (Their fellow Argie Santiago Solari, however, had no international duty excuse. He got his first Serie A start of the season and worked his ass off, as usual, but was just useless, crossing the ball out of bounds repeatedly and making the wrong decision more often than not. Poor man.)

The first half, in which all the goals were scored, was better for Inter and (not surprisingly) worse for Atalanta who, despite forcing one great save out of Julio Cesar, were under pressure much of the time. The first goal came from a lovely interchange between Julio Cruz and David Suazo who beat the frozen Ferdinando Coppola near post with a clean finish just 10 minutes in. Suazo then turned provider, as they say, when his looping cross cleared Coppola, hit the base of the post, and landed at Cruz’s feet; since even I could have scored from that position, Cruz put it away and doubled the lead. But, just as the home team were getting comfortable, Sergio Floccari turned on Ivan Cordoba (who was beaten in exactly the same by Wagner Love in Inter’s last Champions League match) and half-volleyed an unstoppable shot past Julio Cesar shortly before the half.

Atalanta rode that momentum into the second half and were probably unlucky not to at least pull level. They had the ball around the box countless times but inaccurate final passes and timely interventions from Walter Samuel kept most of the possession from resulting in shots on goal. Even a rare appearances from Simone Inzaghi failed to wake things up — in fact, he managed to pick up two dubious yellows and get himself sent off almost before you realized he was on the pitch. (Based on the fact that he went back to the bench to sit down after the red rather than headed down the tunnel, I’m guessing it’s his first red. Either way, he was understandably befuddled by the whole thing.)