euro reaction: inter are terrible

last week, owing to the latest circus enveloping the life and times of a certain david robert joseph beckham, the bbc grabbed the rights to the milan derby. having seen only bits and pieces of both sides this season, largely because of the embargo currently preventing the screening of italian domestic football, i was eager to watch, especially ahead of the forthcoming tie between manchester united and inter. and so, i sat and watched the game - with my football-neutral flatmate in tow - and was stunned. stunned that the bbc had the gall to say it was a good game, and stunned by the ineptitude of the teams on show.

for milan, it was a case of a weak defence - kaladze at centre back anyone? - and leaving pato far too isolated in attack, so when they got possession it was immediately squandered; for inter, it was a case of being unable to pass the ball. time and again their lone tactic was to pump high balls to ibrahimovic and adriano, isolating kaladze and waiting for the knockdown, and it was exactly this that led to the stankovic goal. in the second half, however, when milan bolstered their attack and gave themselves more options, inter couldn't keep the ball and found it harder to get it back when it wasn't served up to their centre-backs on a plate.

and lo! after watching yesterday's game, it appears this was no mirage. inter simply cannot pass the ball; the midfield diamond of muntari, cambiasso, zanetti and stankovic is dreadful, and the shape doesn't provide enough options when they have the ball. the front two do not work hard enough, lack movement, and don't have the pace to stretch a defence. what inter needed last night was a fleet-footed attacker to run the channels down united's right flank, attacking a sluggish john o'shea and making a less than 100% jonny evans turn and run. instead, what did they have? long balls pumped towards the fat, ineffectual adriano and the lazy, ineffectual ibrahimavic. ferdinand and evans, despite being confronted with this serious bulk in front of them, approached the task with perfunctory ease, overpowering the lackadaisical pairing time and again.

the inter midfield, of course, did very little. muntari was invisible for the most part, and dejan stankovic was most notable for his constant moaning at the referee. javier zanetti, once a glorious talented right-back, is now a plodding, nothing player in midfield. only the wonderful esteban cambiasso - one of those real madrid transfer that you look back on with absolute amazement - deserved to be on the same pitch as manchester united. and it was he who took the game over for that short spell in the second half as inter found a second wind (or should that be first wind?). the argentine was excellent, breaking play up and picking his passes with a precision that would, in days past, befit the champions of italy.

of course, this revival was sparked only by manchester united becoming complacent; they lost their shape and passes started to go astray, and the game got scrappy. inter pulled zlatan out wide to attack o'shea and avoid the attention of rio ferdinand (who was immense throughout), which generated a modicum of success. but the performance of the italian champions merely underlined the sheer mediocrity that currently infests serie a, clearly inferior and consistently stretched by a united team with more verve, more incision, better passing and greater solidity.

for united, it must have been a frustrating night. ronaldo, who looked consistently dangerous, more so than he has in quite some time, should have put them ahead with one or more of his headed chances, and ryan giggs, authoring another imperious midfield display in what is now a virtuoso season, needed to clip the ball past julio cesar when rivas had served him up a golden chance. there was criticism of this united side, especially the inclusion of park over rooney, but the korean has had a very good season, showing a sense of craft and dynamism that he once lacked, and fully justified his selection (especially when you consider that rooney, returning from injury, may have struggled to last the 90 minutes). in fact, if there was one disappointment, that would have been dimitar berbatov, the bulgarian lacking even the deft touch you always assume you can rely on, and at times just drifting through the match.

obviously, after the game, jose mourinho said it was perfectly poised - the 0-0 should be celebrated, the implication being that it would only take a single away goal to change the complexion of the tie. but this is a notable change of tack for a man that was proclaiming his team to be the equal of united before the game, talking up zlatan as the best player in the world. these are now claims even the most strident inter fan would struggle to believe, let alone their arch-pragmatist boss. at this point, inter will be lucky to escape with a narrow defeat in the return leg.