Inter give up a two-goal lead at Torino but keep the ten-point cushion as Napoli keep chasing
Inter were 2-0 up at Torino on Sunday and still walked off the Stadio Olimpico with one point. Marcus Thuram scored on 23 minutes, Yann Bisseck nodded in a second on 61, and from there a side that has spent the whole season squeezing out one-goal leads simply could not see it through. Giovanni Simeone pulled one back on 70 and Nikola Vlasic levelled it from the spot on 79. The 2-2 result means Inter still go to bed on Sunday night with a ten-point gap over Napoli with four games to play.
It was the sort of away point Cristian Chivu would have taken before kick-off and the sort of away result he would not. Torino had lost their previous home league game and Inter were always going to be playing at half pace at Torino. They got there early, got comfortable, and got punished.
A costly Inter slip
Inter let this one get away from them. Lautaro Martinez was missing here and Inter looked a different side without him in the second half, slower out of midfield, lighter in the box. Thuram had already done the work that mattered, his header from a Dimarco cross to the back post in the 23rd minute the kind of set-piece-flavoured opener Inter have built their season on.
Bisseck's header from a Dimarco corner just past the hour mark was the sort of set-piece reward that has padded out the Inter total all year. By that point the away end at the Olimpico was singing about a Scudetto, and that was the moment the game turned. Simeone pulled one back nine minutes later with a clever chip over Yann Sommer, and once Vlasic tucked the spot-kick into the corner, awarded for a Carlos Augusto handball, Torino had a draw they did not deserve at half-time.
Federico Dimarco's record
One Inter footnote on a frustrating afternoon. Dimarco set up both Inter goals, a back-post cross for Thuram and a corner for Bisseck, and the second of those took his Serie A assist tally for the season to 17 on the league’s own count. That is the most assists by any player in a single Serie A season on record, surpassing Papu Gomez’s 16 from 2019-20. Opta’s tally is one shorter, with a deflection on a corner ruled out, but on either count Dimarco has just rewritten the league’s assist book from left wing-back.
Bisseck's goal aside, Inter's set-piece returns this season are the clearest sign of a side that knows how to win matches without playing especially well. Almost a third of their league goals have come from dead balls, a number that explains how they are still ten points clear despite a series of tight, draining wins.
Where the title goes from here
The maths are simple enough. Inter are on 79 points, Napoli on 69 with four matches each to play. A win at home to Parma next weekend takes Inter to 82, and if Napoli slip up at Como on the same matchday the title is essentially settled. Napoli were all but out of it already after their 0-2 home defeat to Lazio on 18 April — a first home loss of the season that effectively ended their title defence. The gap was opened up by a run of Inter results in March that nobody, including Napoli, has been able to answer.
For Chivu, the next big midweek date is the Coppa Italia final against Lazio at the Olimpico in Rome on 13 May, after Inter eliminated Como in the semis. Sunday's second-half collapse was annoying, but it does not change the calculus. The Scudetto is in Inter's hands and the cup final is the second trophy on offer.
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