The Dutchman was insufficient for an hour and a half but saved the 0-0 in the final, the 34-year-old came on to contribute to the resistance and earned the nerazzurri precious minutes
That the flanks are nothing short of fundamental for Simone Inzaghi is certainly no surprise, but the Porto-Inter finale presented the Nerazzurri fans with two surprise protagonists: one for the performances of this 2023 and above all for the negative performance in the first hour and a half, the other for the reduced seasonal playing time due to the status in the squad as a – perhaps – outgoing senator. Denzel Dumfries and Danilo D’Ambrosio, the “Double D” of the evening of the Champions League Do Dragao who for once takes the stage in place of the very titular Matteo Darmian (still excellent) and Federico Dimarco.
The Dutchman in the sprint
—
The match of the former PSV Eindhoven could be cut in two with a breadstick. the dotted line between the narrow 5 match on the report card and the abundant 8 survival instinct is so evident that in the 95th minute he advised him to slide into the far post to physically block the goal segment physiologically left uncovered by André Onana: the woodwinds took care of Mehdi Taremi and Ivan Marcano. The data from the match underline the confusing evening: he won many aerial duels (5 out of 7), but he was a godsend for his opponents with as many as 17 balls lost and two failed dribbles out of two, so much so that at one point many Inter fans were convinced that Inzaghi would have removed him and not Dimarco: the blue full-back was however recovering from an injury that had caused him to miss a couple of games and his breath was running out. Luckily for the Nerazzurri, because despite an hour and a half of “I would like, but I can’t”, Dumfries kept the instinct to fend off the last but one desperate attempt by the Portuguese. Luckily Denzel is there, with that Hollywood action movie name.
The experience is served
—
Chapter change. Apart from Giuseppe Meazza’s debut as captain against Bayern Munich, in the Champions League D’Ambrosio had so far only played 26 minutes as a substitute on matchday two at Viktoria Plzen, then five games between many benches and a grandstand. Yesterday, partly due to the need to lower the center of gravity and resist until the triple whistle and partly due to the absence of Robin Gosens, Inzaghi placed him in the exceptional position of left winger for the first time this season. Twenty minutes of regulation plus seven added time, 27 total, to triple the fouls suffered by any teammate. No one suffered more than one, he three: and it wasn’t a crash course in cleverness, but a lectio magistralis of applied experience. Innate instinct to jump on the ball first and reading the game to understand that the opponent on duty would have been in a competitive trance enough to overwhelm him in the hunt for the ball. Result: the referee’s whistle, the game stopped, fresh air in the lungs of the Inter players and even more frayed nerves in the Portuguese bodies. And the nerazzurri in the round of 16 after twelve years, also thanks to two protagonists who for one reason or another weren’t the ones expected and foreseen.
March 15 – 10:10 am
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
