Inter’s Champions League progress built on depth and defensive resilience

The semi-final known to Italians as il Euroderby began with an ear-splitting chorus of “Pioli’s on fire” one week ago at San Siro, Milan supporters showing appreciation for their manager, Stefano, but it ended as vindication for the man in the opposing dugout. Simone Inzaghi was supposed to be a dead man walking in early April, national newspapers predicting that one more defeat could lead to his sacking at Internazionale. At which point he simply stopped losing.

Eight wins in a row have carried the Nerazzurri from sixth to third in Serie A, and into a pair of cup finals. Defending the Coppa Italia is one thing, fighting for the Champions League another. Few outsiders gave Inter hope of even reaching the knockout phase of this competition when they were drawn with Bayern Munich and Barcelona in the group stage.

Yet that is what they did, beating the Catalan side at home and drawing 3-3 at the Camp Nou before eliminating Porto, Benfica and now their neighbours Milan. Inzaghi insisted on Tuesday that none of this was a surprise to him, telling Sky Sports: “I believed. I believed from the day of the draw.”

It takes more than self-confidence to reach a European final. On Tuesday, Inter won by suffocating any lingering hope out of a Milan side they had beaten 2-0 in the first leg. The Rossoneri mustered only a single shot on target before Lautaro Martínez struck in the 74th minute to put this tie to bed.

This was the fifth meeting of the season between these teams, and the fourth in a row that has ended with an Inter clean sheet. Would it be oversimplifying things to trace that statistic back to one player? Would it seem ridiculous if the footballer in question was a 35-year-old centre-back who had played a grand total of 10