For Internazionale, 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 3 June 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 this wrought and wizened squad, with the 37-year-old Edin Dzeko up front and the 35-year-old Francesco Acerbi in the centre of defence, and wonder just how they got this far. But there is also a kind of deadly honesty to them: men of conviction, men of skill and steel, who over 180 minutes simply stood taller and made the braver decisions.
Dzeko was magnificent again: a colossal and utterly disruptive presence who seemed to run long periods of this game with his backside alone. So too Acerbi, a Milan native (and former Milan player) who has beaten bereavement, depression, alcoholism and testicular cancer to reach this point, and for whom this dominant and fearless performance helped to seal the most personal of triumphs. So too Martínez, now just a game away from winning the World Cup and Champions League in the space of six months.
And so to Milan, a crashing disappointment who from the very first whistle last Wednesday never really looked like adding to their seven European Cups. Here again they were painfully lacking in pace and imagination, a team with 57% possession but just one shot in the second half, a team who offered only lethargy where urgency was required, a squad probably too thin and too inexperienced to challenge in two competitions at once.
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, 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 Pioli’s last chance of salvaging something from the season. Now it too has gone, there will be an increasing chorus of voices wondering whether Pioli is part of the solution or part of the problem.
They arrived in hope, buoyed by the return of Rafael Leão on the left wing, suited up for an Inter rearguard. But as the game went on the lack of poise in their build-up was painfully evident, the one-dimensional Olivier Giroud exposed and isolated. Leão had one decent sight of goal all night, a shot dragged wide. Brahim Díaz scuffed a wonderful opening in the first half, and in hindsight that was probably Milan’s best chance of shifting the feel of the tie.
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. Nicolo Barella played a more aggressive role than he had in the first leg, making late runs into the box, trying to latch onto the second balls from Martínez and Dzeko. Dzeko enjoyed Inter’s best chance of the half, flicking on a free-kick and forcing the supreme Mike Maignan to scrabble the ball away.
The game turned a little scrappy in the second half, dead ends begetting dead ends, wrestles begetting wrestles. Dzeko’s backside was still running the show, 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.
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Finally, with 15 minutes remaining, the bomb went off. Inter won the ball too easily on the left, worked it into the area virtually unchallenged, Lukaku and Martínez and Robin Gosens all exchanging it. Finally it came to Martínez, who jammed the ball in at the near post before running over to the advertising hoardings and standing atop them like a god on a pedestal. For the first time Inter could breathe, a gasp of air that felt as fresh and life-affirming as the very first.
Will Pep Guardiola or Carlo Ancelotti endure any sleepless nights? 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. 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.
