Inter beat Lugano 4 - 1 in their first pre - season friendly game

A new season has once again begun. There’s a new shirt and and a determination to work hard to be ready for the start. In what has now become a fixture in Inter’s pre-season training programme, it started in Lugano, the city where Simone Inzaghi and his Inter team pressed the play button.

After six days of training, match day finally returned, with Romelu Lukaku, alongside Lautaro Martinez, up front, but also with new additions immediately in the starting line up: Asllani, Bellanova, Mkhitaryan. Set up in a 3-5-2 system, they immediately put the travelling Interisti in Switzerland in good spirits.

It may be a new year but some things stay the same; Danilo D’Ambrosio’s bullet header opened the scoring - who coincidentally got last season’s first goal of the summer friendlies - after only three minutes from a Asllani corner. It put Inter on the road to victory, even if the Swiss side have almost finished their pre-season preparations and kick off their Super League campaign on Sunday. 

As in most pre-season matches, especially the early ones, the passages of play weren’t breathtaking. Handanovic made a fine save from Celar’s deflected shot on seven minutes, which allowed Inter to keep their lead in tact, and they made it 2-0 soon after on 16 minutes. Lautaro was predatory in the box to take advantage of an error by the home side’s goalkeeper Saipi; a goal straight away to get off the mark for Toro, who was hugged by his team mates and cheered by the 5,200 fans in Lugano. There was little intensity and pace to the game and Lugano caused some problems, especially with some long distance attempts on goal. Haile-Selassi’s shot went just wide of the post and then forced Handanovic into a superb, instinctive save from a close-range header.

Inzaghi made changes for the second half putting on Onana, Lazaro e Correa. The week’s training load started to show as Inter’s intensity dropped. On 60 minutes, the Head Coach sent on Correa to get himself into goal-scoring positions. And it was exactly what he did. On 61 minutes, he made a great forward run into the box, took on the defender and struck the ball across the keeper into the far corner to make it 3-0. And it was the uncontainable Correa again, who on 73 minutes, after a long ball from Onana, found himself in lots of space to cross for Lautaro. Toro, in his last piece of the action, got ahead of his marker at the front post and fired in from close range. It was a classic goal from Nerazzurri’s number 10 doing what he does best. 

At 4-0, and a host of changes that saw some youth team players come on for the final few minutes, Lugano found a goal through Casciato to reduce the deficit to 4-1, taking advantage of some confusion between Inter defenders.

The match ended 4-1 for Inzaghi’s first outing of the season, who were as always cheered on by the vociferous Inter supporters.

LUGANO-INTER 1-4

LUGANO (4-2-3-1): 1 Saipi (58 Osigwe 46'); 8 Durrer (23 Srdic 60'), 3 Ziegler (46 Stober 46'), 30 Daprelà (15 Mai 46'), 17 Valenzuela (41 De Queiroz 46'); 14 Sabbatini (42 Alshik 46'), 20 Doumbia (29 Belhadj 46'); 11 Haile-Selassie (43 Mound 46'), 27 Babic (18 Mahou 60'), 45 De Jesus (33 Casciato 46'); 9 Celar (10 Bottani 60').

Allenatore: Mattia Croci Torti.

INTER (3-5-2): 1 Handanovic (24 Onana 46'); 36 Darmian (39 Silvestro 88'), 33 D'Ambrosio (43 Hoti 76'), 47 Fontanarosa (38 Sottini 76'); 12 Bellanova (15 Lazaro 46'), 22 Mkhitaryan (11 Correa 46'), 14 Asllani (40 Sangalli 88'), 42 Agoumé (45 Carboni 88'), 8 Gosens (46 Zanotti 67'); 90 Lukaku (50 Casadei 67'), 10 Lautaro (16 Salcedo 76').

A disposizione: 21 Cordaz, 51 Fabbian.

Allenatore: Simone Inzaghi.

Marcatori: 3' D'Ambrosio (I), 16' Lautaro (I), 61' Correa (I), 73' Lautaro (I), 82' Casciato (L)