Inter Milan, the current Coppa Italia champions, advanced to the quarterfinals after overcoming a scare to defeat Parma of Serie B 2-1 in extra time at San Siro.
Before Lautaro Martinez scored the equalizer with Inter’s first chance on goal in the 88th minute, Stanko Juric’s fierce effort toward the conclusion of the first half appeared to be enough for Fabio Pecchia’s club.
Before Francesco Acerbi’s spectacular header gave the Nerazzurri the victory, they were struggling to hold on at times in extra time.
Danilo D’Ambrosio, Robin Gosens, and Denzel Dumfries were among the seven changes made by Simone Inzaghi to the team that drew 2-2 at Monza on Saturday. Gianluigi Buffon began in goal for Parma, although the 44-year-old had nothing to do for the first 87 minutes of the match.
After a quiet start, the Serie B team unexpectedly took the lead in the 38th minute when Adrian Bernabe’s forward ball was flicked by Simon Sohm into the path of Juric, who had only been on the field for 12 minutes after replacing the injured Dennis Man. Juric’s rocket of a shot went past Andre Onana’s vain dive.
Inzaghi turned to his substitutes, including Edin Dzeko, as Inter struggled to break down Parma in the second half. He went for it with an aggressive trio of the Bosnian alongside Martinez and Joaquin Correa, and it eventually paid off.
To the relief of the home crowd, a deep ball from Kristjan Asllani was only cleared as far as Martinez with just over two minutes of regulation time remaining. Martinez’s shot deflected off Yordan Osorio and past Buffon to force extra time, but not before the former Juventus goalkeeper made a deft save to prevent Dzeko from scoring in stoppage time.
The impressive visitors took the game to Inter in the extra 30 minutes, with Antoine Hainaut firing just wide after intercepting a loose pass from Roberto Gagliardini, but Inter stepped it up in the second period and won it thanks to Acerbi after Buffon punched a Federico Dimarco cross straight to the waiting centre-back, who headed it back over him and into the net.
What does it mean? Win all that matters for Inter
Inter are fourth in Serie A while Parma are sixth in Serie B, but the visitors had only one win from their previous six coming into this.
It was therefore quite surprising to see them come close to what would have been a deserved victory had Martinez not rescued his team.
While going through is all that matters, Inzaghi will be concerned with how slow and uninspired nature of his team, which despite the changes, still appeared far stronger on paper than most others in Italy.
Buffon rolls back the years
Granted, he had no save to make until Martinez’s deflected shot whizzed past him, but Buffon’s save from Dzeko shortly after kept his team in it and served as a reminder to anyone who needed one of his qualities.
The former Juventus and Italy stopper only made one other save all game, but it surely gave heart to anyone in their mid-40s that they too can still dream of performing to a high level in the Coppa Italia one day.
Blunt Inter close to crashing out
It was a particularly poor first half from Inter, who had just two shots despite having 73.5 per cent possession, failing to hit the target with either, while Parma had three of their own, all on target.
Not until Martinez equalised did the hosts had a shot on target, and despite winning, Inter still ended the game having had fewer attempts on target (four) than their second tier opponents (six).
What’s next?
Inter host Hellas Verona in Serie A on Saturday while Parma are away to Bari in Serie B on the same day.