Marcus Thuram will direct the candidacy of Inter Milan to make a second final of the Champions League in three seasons by beating Barcelona and keeping alive their hopes of trophy of a season which promised so much but which could not yet deliver anything. Intervenes in their confrontation in the second row at the level of San Siro after the thriller of six goals from last week, which leaves the match equally balanced and suggested that the Italian champions have a chance to pass the flamboyant leaders of the Liga. The striker of France Thuram will be the focal point of Inter attack on Tuesday evening, as he was when he made a spectacular return of an injury to Catalonia with a first match with recovery wedges.
Barcelona had to bring some of their big cannons to beat the real Valladolid, already linked on Saturday, while the trainer of Inter Simone Inzaghi managed to rest all his first XI in a victory not ready 1-0 against Verona.
Inzaghi Massimiliano Farris’s assistant said efforts in the first stage “would squeeze DRY’s first choice players, who will have to make another huge change to exceed Barça.
The victory of Saturday in a moderate of San Siro kept the hopes of the Inter to keep the title of Serie A, but with three remaining games in Italy and Napoli leading the division by three points, the Champions League is now their best hope for a trophy.
It would have seemed ridiculous following the victory in the fascinating quarter -finals of Inter against Bayern Munich, which reinforced the hopes of an A cup, an Italian cup and a Champions League.
But without a thuram, an inter exhausted lost its three following domestic games without scoring a goal, going from three points ahead of Napoli at the top of series A three points behind and suffering from a miserable elimination of the cup in the hands of AC Milan.
Make the impossible
Now, the 27 -year -old will face Barça with teammates who have had the rare luxury of a week of rest after a brutal season which has exposed a lack of squad depth, especially in advance.
Between them, Thuram and his strike partner Lautaro Martinez scored 39 goals in 92 appearances in all competitions, a sign of the little Inzaghi who trusts his attack replacements.
Meanwhile, Marko Arnautovic, Mehdi Taremi and Joaquin Correa have perceived 10 times in the equivalent of 35 games – playing time was mainly spread on replacement appearances – with Arnautovic Netting Sept of these goals.
This is a problem with Martinez with little to start in San Siro after the Argentinian striker and the team captain injury to the legs in the first leg.
He and Benjamin Pavard, scorer of the goal who sent Bayern to Bayern, risks Tuesday’s match, although the French defender Pavard returned to team training on Sunday following an ankle injury suffered against Roma last month.
Meanwhile, Martinez trains by himself and puts pressure on a place on the bench against Barça, in the hope that he will be ready to at least play a role in a match that will determine in which mood will intervene in the last weeks of the campaign.
“They are both at risk (not to play),” Farris told journalists on Saturday.
“Lautaro will try to do the impossible, while Pavard had a horrible sprain but he tried to make himself available. We will probably end up deciding them in the pre-match.”
The Inter hopes that Robert Lewandowski will remain unavailable, as he was for the first leg, although the captain of Poland trains with the rest of the Barça team.
Defenders Alejandro Balde and Jules Kounde are still out of action, and coach Hansi Flick would probably have preferred not to bring Lamine Yamal and Raphinha to Valladolid before the biggest match of the two teams.
(With the exception of the title, this story has not been published by NDTV staff and is published from a unionized flow.)
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