Dzeko and Mkhitaryan punish Milan’s slow start to put fearless Inter in charge

After the silence, the explosion. It was the biggest game this city has seen in two decades, and if there was a certain restraint to the emotions at full time it was only the knowledge that next week’s will be bigger still. Yet after 90 minutes we have a clear favourite: Simone Inzaghi’s flawed but fearless Inter Milan, who claimed the spoils in a startling opening burst and then held off their bitter rivals through gritted teeth, and against an atmosphere that shook the senses.

Even on their home turf this was an away game for Inter, and as pre-match nerves gave way to open hostility, they produced a performance to stand alongside any in the club’s recent European history. Edin Dzeko and Henrikh Mkhitaryan claimed the goals, but in reality this was a triumph of leadership: not so much from Inzaghi himself but from the big-game players who did their jobs, won their duels, sensed and sniffed their way through the sort of game for which no team talk or training can really prepare you.

For AC Milan, the only small mercy is that there is still a semi-final to salvage. This is a club steeped in the heritage of the European Cup, who have played beyond themselves to reach this point and will back themselves to do the same next Tuesday. But there comes a point when tradition and institutional memory run up against the hard-edged necessities of, you know, being able to clear the ball from your own penalty area. And on some level perhaps Milan were simply disoriented by the size of the occasion, rattled by the noise, blown out of their comfort zone.

But before the explosion, there was silence. Silence on the metro, silence in the piazzas and silence in the cafes. Milan was a siege city in the hours before this game, gripped by the