Big milestones for Candreva and Borja Valero and goals from distance: Inter 2 - 0 Napoli, all you need to know

MILAN - Last night saw Inter triumph 2-0 over Napoli thanks to goals from Danilo D'Ambrosio and Lautaro Martinez: a victory sealed with a real team performance, with plenty more of our players taking the limelight in all the best facts and statistics compiled in collaboration with Opta.

CANDREVA 150, BORJA VALERO 100

In last night’s game against Napoli, Antonio Candreva and Borja Valero both hit big milestones in their Nerazzurri careers, reaching 150 and 100 appearances respectively across all competitions in an Inter shirt. Born in ’87, Candreva’s four seasons at Inter since arriving in 2016 have seen him rack up 124 appearances and twelve goals in Serie A, seven games and four goals in the Coppa Italia and 19 games and two goals in European competitions, adding up to a total of 150 Inter appearances and 18 goals.

Born two years prior in ’85, Borja Valero arrived at Inter the following year in 2017: 82 games and four goals in Serie A, three games and one goal in the Coppa Italia and 15 games in European competitions: a total of 100 games and five goals for our Spanish maestro.

LAUTARO, A LONG-DISTANCE SPECIALIST 

A thunderbolt from almost 40 yards out marked Lautaro Martinez’s 19th goal of the season and his 14th in the league. This was El Toro’s fourth finish from outside the box in the league this season, with our Argentine hitting longshots against Brescia, SPAL and Torino. The last Inter player to do better in a single Serie A season was Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who scored six from outside the box in the 2008/09 season. Following Cagliari and Torino, Napoli became the third team against whom Lautaro Martínez scored in both his home and away encounters this season.

INTER’S SPRINT STARTS

Once again against Napoli, Inter managed to break the deadlock with the game barely underway. Conte’s side have scored the most goals of any team in Serie A in the opening 15 minutes of games (nine, level with Lazio). An important statistic which has allowed the Nerazzurri to control games from the off. Along with this comes another interesting stat, in the fact that for the seventh time this season, Inter scored with their first shot on target in a league match, a record in this statistic.

D'AMBROSIO, OUR GOALSCORING DEFENDER

15 of Inter’s goals have come from defenders in Serie A this season, bettered only by Atalanta (16) and Real Madrid (17) in Europe’s Top 5 leagues. Having not scored a league goal with his feet since Inter vs. Sampdoria in February 2019, D'Ambrosio has now scored 15 goals from his 204 appearances in a Nerazzurri shirt. This was his first goal for Inter scored in the first 20 minutes of a Serie A game. D'Ambrosio is now Inter’s fifth top scorer in the current squad across all competitions, with only Lukaku, Martínez, Brozovic and Candreva ahead of him.

BIRAGHI’S ASSISTS AND OUR CLEAN SHEETS: MORE FUN FACTS

From defender to creator, Cristiano Biraghi provided yet another assist, his sixth this league campaign. Only Robin Gosens (Atalanta) has provided more as a defender.

An interesting fact from last night’s game against Napoli: all eight of Inter’s shots came from different players: D'Ambrosio, Lautaro, Bastoni, Biraghi, Brozovic, Eriksen, Lukaku and Borja Valero.

After clean sheets against Fiorentina and Genoa, this was Handanovic and Inter’s third consecutive game without conceding: the Nerazzurri hadn’t recorded three clean sheets in a row since last September.