Inter travel to Turin to face their bitter rivals Juventus in the Italian top flight on Sunday night.
Simone Inzaghi lost seven of his nine meetings with Massimiliano Allegri’s Juventus while in charge of Lazio. However, since moving to Inter, the former striker is unbeaten against the Old Lady (W3 D1), winning the Supercopa Italiana and Coppa Italia at the expense of Juve.
Here’s the Inter XI Inzaghi may deploy to maintain his unbeaten run against his former bogey team.
GK: Andre Onana – The former Ajax custodian was part of the Dutch side that reached the 2019 Champions League semi-finals, knocking Juve out on the way.
CB: Milan Skriniar – Inzaghi had to fight to keep Skriniar at San Siro in the summer but members of the Premier League elite are circling the burly centre-back again.
CB: Stefan de Vrij – A stalwart under Inzaghi at both Lazio and now Inter, the Dutch defender scored his first Serie A goal since January 2021 last weekend. Oddly enough, both were against Sampdoria.
CB: Alessandro Bastoni – The promising 23-year-old dedicates all of his goals to Agnese, his best friend, who was killed in a car accident in 2015.
RWB: Denzel Dumfries – One of Dumfries’ teammates in the amateur team Smitshoek, Sean Verburg, remembered: “He wasn’t the best player in our team, and we were only Smitshoek.” On his good days, the Dutch international is one of the best attacking weapons at Inter’s disposal.
CM: Nicolo Barella – Having scored in each of his last three league appearances, much will be expected of Barella heading into Sunday.
CM: Marcelo Brozovic – The self-styled “football player and cryptocurrency evangelist” is poised to shift his focus from Bitcoin to the Bianconeri after sitting out nine games through injury.
CM: Hakan Calhanoglu – Turkey’s international skipper has lost more Serie A matches to Juve (six) than any other Italian club.
LWB: Federico Dimarco – When Dimarco has been on the pitch this season, Inter have conceded an average of 0.98 goals per 90 compared to 2.90 without the boyhood Nerazzurri fan.
ST: Lautaro Martinez – In the absence of his good friend Romelu Lukaku, Martinez leads Inter’s scoring list with six league goals this season.
ST: Edin Dzeko – The first Serie A goal Dzeko ever scored was against Juventus. The veteran striker has netted another 100 in the competition since.
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