For the past couple of weeks SempreInter.com’s new editorialist, Richard Hall, has taken a look back at the glorious history of Inter by highlighting a certain match, hero or any other event in Inter’s history worthy of being labelled Nerazzurri Classic’s. Ahead of tomorrow’s away fixture against Roma, Richard looks back at a fixture between the two teams which saw Inter come away with a emphatic win for the first time in 9 years.
Italian football was feeling the warm glow of a golden age on its face in the late 1980’s. Italia 90 was around the corner and stars of world football were lining up to play in this elite division. It was during these heady days that Giovanni Trapattoni assembled an Inter team that swept all before it. Countless games during this season live long in the memory of the Nerazzurri and the 0-3 away win at Roma was one of the best.
Although Inter flattered to deceive in the Coppa Italia and the UEFA Cup it could be argued in their defence that it was due to the focus on the Scudetto. This was the era of Maradona’s Napoli and no chances could be taken big games needed to be won in Serie A and Inter gave this their full focus.
Roma were under the joint leadership of Nils Liedholm and Luciano Spinosi and had recruited a good group of players themselves. Players such as Bruno Conti and Ruggiero Rizzitelli complemented the world class internationals Giuseppe Giannini and Rudi Voller. It has to be said that seventh place was a huge underachievement for this team especially when this team also bowed out of domestic and European competition early.
The game in March was played in bright sunshine and at an electric pace. Things could have been different early on when Voller was unlucky not to force Giannini’s volleyed cross into Walter Zenga’s goal. This seemed to wake Inter who immediately started to put Roma under pressure and on the twelfth minute a clever ball through from Nicola Berti found Lothar Matthäus who powered through the midfield and slotted the ball neatly under Franco Tancredi.
The Nerazzurri went from strength to strength and it was not long before they had Roma on the ropes, Matthäus won the ball in midfield and played a neat one two with Giuseppe Bergomi before crossing in perfectly for the onrushing Aldo Serena. It was a perfect header from a proven goal scorer. His opposite number although just as deadly was not having the best of days, Voller had two tame efforts at the Inter goal that found the safe hands of Zenga, on another day they could have found the net.
Roma continued to push on and Giannini and Voller combined again and perhaps should have had a penalty. This was not forth coming and the Giallorossi allowed Inter to finish the game in style. On the 75 minutes Ramon Diaz created a moment of quality when he nutmeged Sebastiano Nela before crashing the ball into the top corner.
This was the fourth game in in a fifteen game unbeaten run that saw the Nerazzurri deservedly win the Scudetto. The black and blue half of the San Siro celebrated a season that had been simply breathtaking and games like the one in the Stadio Olimpico have now gone down in legend.
