In this match Inter still played roughly the same 352 as in the previous match, with Acerbi, Bastoni, Darmian at the back, Dumfries, Dimarco on the wings, Mkhitaryan, Çalhano?lu, Barella in the midfield, Lautaro, Dzeko at the front, and Milan lined up in a 4231, with Tomori, Thiaw, Calabria, TheoHernandez at the back, Krunic, Tonali at the attacking midfield, BrahimDiaz, Messaias on the right wing, Lautaro, Dzeko. Tomori, Thiaw, Calabria, Theo Hernandez, back Krunic, Tonali, attacking midfielder Brahim Diaz, Messaias on the right wing, the return of Leão on the left flank, and Giroud up front.
(Both teams start)
Milan started the game with an attack to grab points, and the tactics continued the same way as in the previous game, with Tonali crossing the center line to distribute the ball as much as possible. In this game, they were bold enough to leave only three defenders at the back of the field, and the rest of the team pressed on to the attack, and Inter went into a defensive counter-attack from the start, as expected, with the entire midfield backing up in defense and relying on the strikers to counter-attack only.
Leão's return did help Milan's left attack, but with Inter's full retreat, they were also very careful with him, often with two players in the defense, and Leão could not create chances on the left side in such a situation, and then Lautaro also participated in the defense, and Inter set up a very dense defensive formation in their own backfield.
Inter would press Milan when they had the ball at the back, with the aim of forcing Milan players to retreat, but Milan really pushed on, relying on the three players at the back to get the ball out of the box all the time, with the two wings and Tonali trying not to retreat, and although it would take some time to get past the halfway line, it did allow them to form a siege in front of the goal.
Tonali had a chance on the left in the 10th minute, Diaz's low shot from 12 yards was caught by Onana, it was a good chance, and Inter's counterattacks were also very efficient, due to Milan's small number of players at the back, Inter could easily create chances on both sides of the field, and it was almost always dangerous in the center of the field, however, Milan's defense returned to their standard this game. Basically, the defense has been able to block all the chances.
At the 37:00 mark Leão took a high ball down the left side of the field and shook off Darmian, causing him to fall, then Leão raced into the box and fired a low shot from the left side of the field that skimmed the far post and went just wide of the goal, Leão's best chance of the game!
Inter also had a couple of threatening attacks, but Milan's goalkeeper Maignan also parried the ball away, especially Lautaro's header which was extremely close to the goal, so it's fair to say that both goalkeepers were excellent in the first half, and both blocked shots that should have been goals!
Before the end of the first half Mkhitaryan was injured, replaced by Brozovic, but the overall defensive counterattack posture of Inter did not have much impact, Brozovic in the middle of the solid situation in the middle of Milan, but in the middle of the completely blocked!
Milan couldn't get into the center of the field and the two wings were actually blocked, so they could only barely get the ball into the center of the field, but Inter's central defender was also tall enough and Milan's attacker in the penalty area was only Giroud, so this kind of pass couldn't be too effective. Basically, Milan could only repeat this kind of pass in the second half, but Inter didn't suffer too much.
