#FT: Benfica 3-3 Internazionale
Venue: Estádio da Luz
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Benfica
Anatoliy Trubin, Nicolás Otamendi, António Silva, Morato, Fredrik Aursnes, Rafa Silva, João Neves, Florentino Luís (Orkun Kökcü), Casper Tengstedt (Petar Musa), João Mário, Ángel Di María (Tomás Araújo).
Subs: Chiquinho, Leo Brian Kokubo, David Jurasek, João Victor, Arthur Cabral, Samuel Soares, Tiago Gouveia.
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Internazionale
Emil Audero, Stefan de Vrij (Federico Dimarco), Francesco Acerbi, Yann Bisseck, Kristjan Asllani, Davy Klaassen (Nicolò Barella), Davide Frattesi, Carlos Augusto, Matteo Darmian (Juan Cuadrado), Marko Arnautovic (Marcus Thuram), Alexis Sánchez (Lautaro Martínez).
Subs: Aleksandar Stankovic, Raffaele Di Gennaro, Hakan Calhanoglu, Giacomo Stabile, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Issiaka Kamate, Yann Sommer.
MATCH EVENTS | via ESPN
5' Goal! Benfica 1, Inter Milan 0. João Mário (Benfica) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Casper Tengstedt with a headed pass.Goal awarded following VAR Review.
13' Goal! Benfica 2, Inter Milan 0. João Mário (Benfica) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner.
34' Goal! Benfica 3, Inter Milan 0. João Mário (Benfica) left footed shot from very close range to the bottom left corner.
51' Goal! Benfica 3, Inter Milan 1. Marko Arnautovic (Inter Milan) left footed shot from the left side of the six yard box to the bottom left corner following a corner.Goal awarded following VAR Review.
58' Goal! Benfica 3, Inter Milan 2. Davide Frattesi (Inter Milan) left footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Francesco Acerbi with a cross.
68' Substitution, Inter Milan. Juan Cuadrado replaces Matteo Darmian.
68' Substitution, Inter Milan. Marcus Thuram replaces Marko Arnautovic.
68' Substitution, Inter Milan. Nicolò Barella replaces Davy Klaassen.
72' Goal! Benfica 3, Inter Milan 3. Alexis Sánchez (Inter Milan) converts the penalty with a right footed shot to the bottom left corner.
72' João Mário (Benfica) is shown the yellow card.
76' Juan Cuadrado (Inter Milan) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
77' Substitution, Inter Milan. Federico Dimarco replaces Stefan de Vrij.
78' Morato (Benfica) is shown the yellow card.
79' Substitution, Benfica. Orkun Kökçü replaces Florentino.
79' Substitution, Benfica. Petar Musa replaces Casper Tengstedt.
79' Substitution, Inter Milan. Lautaro Martínez replaces Alexis Sánchez.
86' António Silva (Benfica) is shown the red card.
89' Substitution, Benfica. Tomás Araújo replaces Ángel Di María.
For fuck's sake. This was embarrassing on an extraordinary level.
I'll give them credit: they came in guns ablaze, were able to press and force errors Inter's B side effectively, leading to three goals in 30+ minutes. João Mário, for all his defects as a player (slow, doesn't press, loses 1v1 easily), had his finishing on point, and Casper Tengstedt's aggressive pressing was the closest thing we've had to Gonçalo Ramos all season. Florentino was beastly in recovering balls and the team just seemed solid.
Then, Inter actually woke up. From before the first half, they started actually kicking into gear, pressing hard on the midfield, occupying and crowding spaces easily and giving our players no chance of progression. At halftime, I thought the momentum was changing. Sure enough, 3-3 by the 80th minute. And Schmidt did nothing to invert that. He's a horrendous, horrendous game reader. He has his tactic that works well against apathic teams or weaker teams, but when his players don't collaborate and/or when the opposition actually has tactical ideas to counter this, Benfica is useless.
To this, no help was given by Rafa and Di María, who, as per usual, did nothing. No pressing, no running, no winning duels, nothing, which is inexcusable in a 4-2-3-1 formation. Di María's apathy punished Benfica's right flank yet again, and DiMarco was lethal when he came on. The midfield was bossed, the team never got a big chance again, basically, Inter went from embarrassed to a bar away from a 4-3 comeback.
Schmidt will never get past this, because we keep running into these situations and he still keeps making the same mistake over and over. His stubbornness is severe enough that he refuses to acknowledge that his tactic isn't a one size fits all, and that he needs to give different players a chance, especially when the team is losing ground on field. I'm sure that losing key players like Enzo, Grimaldo and Ramos was a blow, as is the lack of inspiration that some of last year's protagonists have rn, and sure that we made some horrible transfers this year (Jurásek and Arthur Cabral were big miscasting issues), but it can't all be blamed on an underperforming team. The issue is to the core of this team, and until we start taking our sporting seriously and not just as a stepping stone for our SAD to make money, it'll never change.
For now, all I'm left with is the tremendous disappointment of blowing a 3-0 lead at home in a Champions game and seeing our chances to continue in Europe dwindle.
TL;DR: fuck Roger Schmidt and fuck Rui Costa.