When Inter conceded an equaliser in the 85th minute of the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final away against Bayern Munich, they didn’t accept the draw to take back to San Siro or rush to attack their opponents and so risk letting in an even later winner.
Instead, Simone Inzaghi’s side played out the remainder of the game as if it was just beginning, and their coolness on the ball allowed them to build an attack slowly, combining in midfield to cut Bayern open, before Carlos Augusto found Davide Frattesi’s run into the penalty area for him to score and send them back to Italy with a 2-1 advantage.
Inter were fortunate to be 1-0 up at the end of a balanced first half where Bayern missed chances, but after the break their defence was minutes away from keeping a clean sheet, until substitute Thomas Muller was in the right place at the right time to level the scores.
The significance of Frattesi’s late winner goes beyond this tie, because it resembles Inter’s attacking play at its best: daring, methodical and artistic — ‘il calcio futuro’ as some might call it.
Yet, instead of looking into the future, it’s important to examine the past.
Frattesi’s goal on Tuesday has become a trademark move for Inter under Inzaghi, where they combine on one side of the pitch with the help of one of the centre-forwards, while the midfielder on the other flank advances to attack the space.
One variation of this move starts with Inter finding their dropping centre-forward…
… who combines with the wide centre-backs or the midfield trio to progress the ball down the flank. Meanwhile, the midfielder on the other side dashes forward.
Here, against Feyenoord in the previous round, Mehdi Taremi drops and Inter combine through him to move the ball towards the left side. Taremi’s positioning forces Feyenoord’s right centre-back to move up and Marcus Thuram attacks the vacant area, which helps Inter’s right midfielder, Frattesi, who is dashing forward as the ball is being moved towards their left side.
Thuram’s movement drags Feyenoord’s left centre-back out of position and creates space for Frattesi to run into, with the opposition left-back distant due to Denzel Dumfries’ threat down the wing.
In this next example, against Parma in a Serie A match from December, Inter are attacking down their left side and Federico Dimarco chips the ball upfield…
… towards a dropping Thuram, who chests it back to Henrikh Mkhitaryan. Meanwhile, Inter’s right-sided midfielder, Nicolo Barella, attacks the space between Parma’s left-back and centre-back.
As the ball is moving towards Mkhitaryan, Lautaro Martinez drops to drag Parma’s centre-back up the pitch and create space for Barella to move into. Again, it’s important to note Dumfries’ advanced position, which forces the opponent’s left-back to be in the middle between him and Barella and not close enough to the latter.
Mkhitaryan then finds Barella’s run behind the defence with an exquisite half-volley…
… and he scores after dribbling past the recovering left-back.
Inter don’t always use one of their centre-forwards in their passing combinations.
In this example, against Udinese in Serie A last month, Augusto directly finds Mkhitaryan down the left side. Initially, Inter’s right midfielder, Frattesi, is marked by Arthur Atta…
… but the Udinese midfielder is dragged towards the ball to help the right side of his defence. This mistake proves to be costly because, as Mkhitaryan carries the ball upfield, Frattesi is surging forward through the middle.
When Mkhitaryan finds Dimarco’s overlapping run…
… Frattesi is ready to attack the space between Udinese’s midfield and centre-backs, who are forced deeper by the movement of Thuram and Marko Arnautovic.
Dimarco chooses the correct option and finds Frattesi…
… who puts the ball into the back of the net.
In our next example, from the reverse fixture against Parma last Saturday, Inter build their attack through the right side and find Hakan Calhanoglu, who played as the right midfielder in this game instead of Barella.
As Calhanoglu drops to receive the ball from Matteo Darmian…
… Mkhitaryan dashes forward into the gap behind the defence. Parma’s centre-backs try to play the offside trap, but the situational right wing-back, Pontus Almqvist, isn’t in sync with his colleagues because a) he’s playing out of position as he’s primarily a winger, and b) he is wary of the threat posed by Dimarco and Thuram.
Calhanoglu then returns the ball to Darmian…
… who finds Mkhitaryan’s run…
… before the Armenia midfielder sets up Thuram, whose scuffed shot loops over the goalkeeper and into the net.
So Frattesi’s winner against Bayern was a move Inter have been executing all season long.
Here, he is marked by Joshua Kimmich as Barella finds Martinez in the centre circle. The centre-forward’s positioning forces Josip Stanisic to move up…
… and vacate space in Bayern’s defence. As the ball is reaching Martinez, Frattesi dashes forward to attack this area and bypasses Kimmich because he knows the pattern, unlike the Germany midfielder who is merely reacting to the situation.
Martinez then returns the pass to Barella with Augusto pushing on out wide on Inter’s left to provide another passing option. As Inter’s left wing-back, Augusto can freely attack this space without worrying about being offside because Thuram’s positioning is forcing Eric Dier (white dot on the edge of the centre circle) deeper.
In addition, Thuram’s position on the outside of Dier creates further space for Frattesi to attack.
Barella then finds Augusto’s run behind right-back Sacha Boey…
… and he squares the ball to Frattesi, who is in the perfect position to score the winner.
“The goal scored like that shows how the team was (still) in the game and wanted to play until the end with our weapons with our principles that we have known for almost four years,” Inzaghi told Sky Sport Italia after the game.
It’s a goal that encapsulates Inter’s attacking play and one they will be hoping to reproduce in the second leg next Wednesday.
Leave a Reply