Coppa Spam: Inter 2.0
(Jose + Cesare: "He likes me! He really likes me!")
After the exciting, high-intensity match over the weekend, this one was sort of a let-down, as well as a bit of a tactical reversal. On Saturday, it was Fiorentina who sat in more and soaked up pressure with a less attacking lineup, whereas yesterday, Inter sent out what might have been their most defensive formation of the season, with Maicon and Mario out wide of what was basically a five-man midfield sitting behind Sammy, while Cesare brought Marco and Vargas back and threw all his attacking power at Inter. Unfortunately for Fiorentina, they fell back into their thing where they don't play full matches and, apart from from the last 25 or so minutes of the first half, never really brought anything like what they had on the weekend. For their part, Inter were tactically sound and, except for a scary moment of Gila!ballet that was cleared by Lucio, mostly managed to contain Fiorentina for the first half, and then went and got the goal they needed in the second to put the match away.
So Inter are into the final against either Roma or Juve, and Fiorentina are back to tearing people apart (hopefully) in their quest for Europe.
Fiorentina 0-1 Inter [highlights|Gazzetta pagelle|Viola ratings table]
Scorer: Eto'o 57.
Fiorentina: 1 Frey; 29 De Silvestri, 14 Natali (19 Gobbi 75), 2 Kroldrup, 16 Felipe; 15 C.Zanetti, 18 Montolivo, 32 Marchionni (24 Santana 62), 8 Jovetic, 6 Vargas (39 Keirrison 62); 11 Gilardino.
Inter: 12 Julio Cesar; 2 Cordoba, 6 Lucio, 23 Materazzi, 26 Chivu; 13 Maicon, 8 Thiago Motta (17 Mariga 79), 4 J.Zanetti, 11 Muntari; 9 Eto'o (19 Cambiasso 64), 45 Balotelli (22 Milito 64).
[Post is at ahh_serie_a again, for the last time the season.]
( Around 200 sort of Inter-organized pictures, not quite as boring as the match.)
Up next, is a trip to Atalanta.