Inter Milan take a 2-1 lead into second leg at home to Bayern
Inter Milan will take a 2-1 lead into the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final at home to Bayern Munich on Wednesday night.
Davide Frattesi netted a late winner in a dramatic first leg at the Allianz Arena last Tuesday, giving the Nerazzurri a slender advantage on their return to San Siro.
After taking the lead with one of the finest counter-attacking moves of the season in Bavaria, Inter were pegged back late on by the evergreen Thomas Muller, but Simone Inzaghi’s men still had more to offer.
Just as it seemed Bayern would push on for an unlikely winner, Inter hit them with a counterpunch, breaking away themselves to retake the lead on 88 minutes, and after briefly switching off for the Muller goal, they kept their focus to hold on for the 2-1 win.
That puts Inter in a fantastic position to reach a second semi-final in three years, where Barcelona are likely to be waiting – the same club they beat in the 2010 semis when they completed the ‘tripletta’.
Last week’s win was their fifth in succession in the Champions League, the first time Inter have managed that feat since they won it with Jose Mourinho in that special 2009-10 season.
The hosts also enter the second leg unbeaten in 14 at San Siro in the competition, which after beating Bayern last week and ending their 22-game run on their own patch, is now the longest ongoing run in the Champions League.
Another treble is in sight for Inter, and going 12 unbeaten across all competitions suggests it will take quite something to stop them at present, as Cagliari were no match for Inzaghi’s side at the weekend, in a 3-1 win for the Serie A leaders.
All Inter have to do is maintain that unbeaten run this midweek and they will be into the semi-finals, ahead of their Coppa Italia semi-final second leg against AC Milan next Wednesday.
Bayern have also remarkably won all four of their away matches against Inter, three of which have come in the Champions League, and all without conceding a goal.
That is Inter’s longest losing streak at home to a single opponent in Europe, but unless Vincent Kompany can mastermind another, he will be under huge pressure in the Bayern dugout. Inzaghi’s Inter have become the masters of defensive solidity in Europe, and another exemplary performance should be enough to see them into the final four.
Bayern will rue switching off late on last week after pulling level, and even though they have an excellent record at San Siro, this task looks like a big one.
Credit: sportsmole.co.uk
It is make or break for Real Madrid as they host Arsenal
It is remontada or bust for reigning Champions League champions Real Madrid on Wednesday night, where Carlo Ancelotti’s men must pull off the most sensational comeback against Arsenal in the second leg of their quarter-final to keep their dream of a sweet 16 alive.
The 15-time European Cup holders were slaughtered 3-0 at the Emirates in last week’s first leg, but Los Blancos now have the famed Bernabeu factor on their side.As Real’s shiny new toy Kylian Mbappe waits patiently for his first-ever goal from a direct free kick, Arsenal’s £105m man Declan Rice offered the World Cup winner some set-piece pointers in North London, firing in two unbelievable dead-ball strikes in the space of 12 minutes.
Even ex-Madrid left-back and free-kick icon Roberto Carlos – in attendance at the Emirates – should have been able to force a smile when Rice firstly bent an incredible effort around the wall before a postage-stamp second, which preceded emergency number nine Mikel Merino also having his say with a brilliant first-time finish.
As a euphoric Emirates crowd celebrated the most famous night in the stadium’s memory, Real Madrid – who deserved nothing and got nothing in North London – lost a first leg of a Champions League/European Cup knockout tie by three or more goals for just the fifth time in their history.
Los Blancos ended up being eliminated on four of those previous five occasions, but the one outlier did come against an English side in the shape of Derby County, whom they lost 4-1 against in the first leg of the 1975-76 last 16 before a 5-1 turnaround in the second.
As Manchester City and Chelsea can attest to, Champions League nights at the Bernabeu are anything but a foregone conclusion, although that 5-1 vs. Derby marks just one of two occasions where Real have beaten an English side by at least four goals in the competition – the other was a 4-0 quarter-final battering of Tottenham Hotspur in 2011.
However, the holders could only manage the one goal in the weekend’s La Liga battle with Alaves, where Eduardo Camavinga struck the winner before Mbappe’s sending-off, but not since December 2018 – against CSKA Moscow – have they failed to score at home in the Champions League. On the flip side, Real Madrid have also conceded at least one goal in each of their last 10 European contests at the Bernabeu, music to the ears of an Arsenal side who may not be able to solely rely on their staunch defending to finish the quarter-final job.
Having defied the absences of Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Magalhaes to rip Real Madrid to shreds in the English capital, Mikel Arteta’s men would be more than worthy semi-finalists, a stage they have only ever reached twice before and not since 2009.
If Arsenal can keep their clean sheet intact in the first 10 minutes – when the Bernabeu crowd is at its most boisterous – that should be a surefire recipe for success, although Real Madrid may have thought the same at the Emirates before the Gunners’ second-half show.
Arteta’s defence is stingy enough to avoid conceding the four goals that Real require to win in normal or extra time, though, and as Los Blancos are vulnerable at the back, one lucky Gunner can have their Henry moment to calm any nerves and send the holders packing, after which Paris Saint-Germain or Aston Villa will stand in their way of Munich.
Credit: sportsmole.co.uk
FIXTURES
Inter Milan 20:00 Bayern Munich
Real Madrid 20:00 Arsenal
