Simone Inzaghi celebrated as if he’d scored.
He dashed from his technical area, making a run to the penalty box, his dress shoes slipping and sliding on the grass as he made an about-turn for the corner flag where his players gathered around centre-back Stefan de Vrij, whose stoppage-time equaliser in the Derby della Madonnina felt like something more.
It brought a deserved halt to a sudden and surprising slide in this rivalry. Inter had won a record six consecutive derbies and, memorably, sealed a 20th Scudetto by beating Milan in April. It was a reason why Milan moved on from Stefano Pioli in the summer.
De Vrij and Nicola Zalewski celebrate the late equaliser (Tiziano Ballabio/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The change(s) of coach have, in this narrow but significant sense, had the desired effect.
Milan outclassed Inter in September under Paulo Fonseca and came back in Riyadh to beat them under Sergio Conceicao in the Super Cup in January. Those results felt like inexplicable aberrations in Inter’s season as much as they felt like curious exceptions in the case of Milan. Sixteen points separated the two going into Sunday’s Madonnina and, on form, as has been the case for two and a half years, it was hard not to consider Inter considerable favourites.
Conceicao himself called it “one of the worst periods in Milan’s history”, forgetting the 44 years they went without winning the league between 1907 and 1951, the relegations in 1980 and 1982 and near bankruptcy in 2018.
Regardless of the lack of historical perspective shown by Conceicao, it didn’t stop people from feeling that way.
Conceicao finds Milan 16 points behind their city rivals (Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
Milan were eighth in Serie A and had fallen out of the Champions League’s top eight by disgrace of a calamitous defeat to Dinamo Zagreb in midweek. Inter, meanwhile, were at their most prolific since 1961 with 55 goals from 21 matchdays and have made title challenges and progress in Europe so routine and hassle-free as to be taken for granted.
Still, Inter could not play with abandon against Milan. The Super Cup in particular opened up mental scar tissue of derbies led and lost in Inzaghi’s first season in 2021-22. So Inter played within themselves, constricted, as if wary of a Milan side that, in-game, leaves the deceptive impression of being distinctly mediocre only to suddenly come to life. While Inter demanded answers from the football gods as to why a couple of first-half goals were disallowed, the Diavolo, as Milan are known, read them the Satanic rites.
Tijjani Reijnders pounced on a loose ball spilled by Yann Sommer from a rare Rafa Leao foray and cross. Here we go again, the Interisti thought. How are we behind? Milan had only taken the lead once under Conceicao in Serie A. It was his first home game against Cagliari, less than a month ago. Everyone connected with the club hoped Conceicao would be able to take the momentum of dramatically winning the Super Cup into the league. Fleetingly, it looked like it might happen.
Reijnders celebrates his opener (Tiziano Ballabio/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Alvaro Morata put Milan in front that night. It was his seventh and final goal for the club. Barely six months after joining from Atletico Madrid, Spain’s European Championship-winning skipper moved to Galatasaray on loan last week. Milan could not make the lead stick against Cagliari, nor could they on Sunday. Inter had another goal, a third disallowed, and hit the woodwork as many times before seizing a deserved point.
When Conceicao replaced Leao with Matteo Gabbia and went to a back three for the final five minutes, the prospect of an equaliser loomed larger and larger. An hour after it went in, the Portuguese conceded it was a fair result. He had spent some of the game sat on a cooling box in the technical area, assuming the Marcelo Bielsa position. Whether it contained refreshment or not was unclear. Conceicao had told his AC Milan players to empty their fridges at home, as they need to be hungrier. The team looked at least like it had been intermittent fasting on Sunday.
After Milan returned from Zagreb, chastened and ashamed, the club’s executives reminded the team of the standards expected. It has been a dramatic week.
Davide Calabria, who lost the captain’s armband when Conceicao took over, wound down the window of his company car and cried as he left to join Bologna. Emerson Royal would perhaps already be at Galatasaray, waiting for Morata, if he hadn’t started and been injured against Girona. Big spending Como confidently made a bid for Theo Hernandez only to then withdraw their offer. Fikayo Tomori turned down moves to the Premier League. Strahinja Pavlovic generated interest too.
In short, three quarters of the defence that started against Inter looked, at varying stages, to be on the way out. The one quarter that wasn’t happened to be new signing Kyle Walker who followed Alessandro Melli and Giuseppe Pancaro in making his Milan debut in a Derby della Madonnina.
Walker takes instruction from Conceicao (Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
Fans will instead have to wait to see Morata’s replacement, Santi Gimenez, who could not be registered in time for the derby. Gimenez breaks the threshold and pattern of behaviour of Milan principally signing players for around €20million (£16.7m; $20.5m). His fee, roughly around what Milan paid for Charles de Ketelaere in 2022, is closer to €40m. It’s a show of ambition and a corrective for a bad summer in which Milan got the choice of manager wrong, not to mention every headline signing other than Youssouf Fofana.
Milan have to hope they’ve done better this time round and that Conceicao — who, it must be remembered, has only been in the job a month — begins to deliver consistency and better performances.
Bologna, Fiorentina and Juventus won at the weekend, meaning Milan once again lost ground in the race for fourth place. As for Inter, the starting XI on Sunday featured none of the players signed in the summer. It is a team that’s very difficult to improve upon. That said, the assist for De Vrij’s equaliser came from Nicola Zalewski, who, unlike Gimenez, did get a deal done with a new club in timely enough fashion to be eligible to play on Sunday.
Inter supporters at the derby (Francesco Scaccianoce/Getty Images)
And Inter, in the end, had more than Zalewski to thank parent club, Roma, for as the weekend drew to a close.
Much like the Madonnina, the Derby del Sole between Roma and Napoli later in the day ended in a draw, with Angelino copying De Vrij and scoring a potentially critical late goal that stopped the league leaders from winning and putting more daylight between them and Inter. It kept the title race as it is. Inter remain only three points behind Europe-less Napoli with a game in hand.
Inzaghi has come through another big game without it damaging Inter’s title credentials. They will take Napoli to the wire.
(Top photo: Alessandro Sabattini/Getty Images)
