Inter lost 3-2 to Panathinaikos in Toronto tonight, in their second game of their North America tour. Sam Eto’o and Coutinho were the goalscorers for Inter.
Panathinaikos jumped out to a two goal lead within 20 minutes as Djibril Cisse twice got on the score sheet. Inter pulled one back in the 32nd minute when a driving Victor Nsofor Obinna fought off defenders left of the goal to send a cross into the box for Eto’o. Obinna has caught my eye in both games and it will be interesting to see if he can get some playing time this season.
Even though Inter outshot Panathinaikos 11-8 in the first half they still went into the dressing room down 3-1 as Ninis added a third for the Greeks right before halftime.
In the second half Rafa emptied his bench, which meant Maicon, Lucio, Sulley Muntari, Walter Samuel and Diego Milito all were given their first playing time of the preseason.
Coutinho made things interesting in the 85th when he fired a rocket from the left side, but Inter could not add another to tie the game.
Post-game reaction to come.
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I agree with you, Inter are looking very strong. Obinna and Coutinho are the players to watch.
The team looked like a mess but I’m prone to charge it to the willingness of some players from the ‘second team’ to try to prove themselves and leave a good impression to the new coach.
This ‘fast’ gamestyle Benitez is trying to convey seems hard to execute versus a team that presses good and in addition inter players looked pretty static, they were covered or/and pressed most of the time so there were a lot of unpleasant mistakes in midfield which led to these goals. Defence was sloppy too, I’m especially disappointed with Natalino.
The good thing tho’ is that the core players could easily beat Panathinaikos, so we have to take into account that the goal of these friendly matches is to find some additions to this core team that is known to work. For now I think Biabiany is a great addition. He’s one of the fastest players I’ve seen and could cause a lot of trouble for enemy defenders. Other young players need some serious work but they do have the potential.
yeeeeeeeeeessssss!!!!!we played very well and we could make more goals at the first half by the incredible perfomance of NINIS-GOVOU-LETO-CISSE!!!!!at the second half inter put all their basic players and we put in young players so it was difficult for them not to accept a goal but congratulations to everyone we full of expectations!!!!!PANATHINAIKOS 4 EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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