Tribal Football

Thuram hits brace as five-star Inter Milan thrash Verona to top Serie A

Andrew Pickering
Marcus Thuram celebrates after scoring his team third goal
Marcus Thuram celebrates after scoring his team third goal Action Plus
Inter Milan put five past Serie A’s worst defence to rise to the summit of Serie A and extend their unbeaten run to 11 matches. It is now 27 matches and 32 years since Hellas Verona beat the Nerazzurri, but an eighth defeat in 10 games provides more immediate concerns for Paolo Zanetti.

Long forgotten by the full-time whistle, but there was a brief moment in time where the home side were on top in this game with Casper Tengstedt rattling the crossbar shortly after Flavius Daniliuc's header had tested Inter goalkeeper Yann Sommer.

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After that impressive opening five minutes, Hellas wilted under a combination of Inter’s incisive attacking play and their own disastrous defensive high line.

Making his first start in over a year, Joaquin Correa had already hit the bar by the time he gave his side the lead, as he chipped his finish past Lorenzo Montipo after smart link up play with Marcus Thuram.

Having provided the assist for the opener, Thuram would bag two almost identical goals in three minutes, as he twice broke a ropy Verona offside trap and rounded the keeper, before stroking the ball into an empty net.

 

 

The result was done and dusted inside the half-hour mark, but Simone Inzaghi’s men had buckets of salt left to rub into the gaping wounds of the Gialloblu.

Stefan de Vrij was only on the pitch because Francesco Acerbi was forced off with an injury early in the first half, and the Dutchman helped himself to a goal by blasting his shot from the edge of the box into the corner.

With five minutes left of the first half the visitors were so laid back they were almost literally horizontal, as Yann Aurel Bisseck poked home a fifth from eight yards despite falling over and being prone on the ground while taking his shot.

It was just the second time in their history that the Nerazzurri had scored five first-half goals in an away game, and they had ruthlessly done so by converting all their shots on target.

With their fate sealed, Paolo Zanetti made a quadruple substitution at half-time in the hope of at least seeing an improvement, and although the goals dried up they continued to be outclassed against their superior opponents. 

Despite conceding five goals, Montipo made his first save of the game early in the second half, excellently denying half-time substitute Piotr Zielinski as the Polish midfielder fizzed in a volley with his first touch of the game.

With little left to play for, the second half was more of a training session than a competitive match, with just six shots on goal in the entire 45 minutes.

For Inter it will be a welcome reprieve, as they look ahead to tricky games against Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen in the Champions League, along with league games against Fiorentina and Lazio, while Hellas will look to bounce back against Cagliari next week.

 

See all the match stats here.