The secrets of Benfica, who face Inter in the Champions League today, and the Nerazzurri’s 3 reasons for hope – Corriere.it

Tonight (9pm on Canale 5, Sky Sport, Sky Sport Uno, Sky Sport 4k and streaming on Sky Go, Now TV and Mediaset Infinity) Inter will play the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Benfica. Find here the analysis of all the quarters signed by Sandro Modeo; below, the chapter dedicated to today’s race.

Benfica coach, Roger Schmidt, one of the few geographical exceptions (Rhineland-Westphalia) compared to the brood of top German coaches, almost all from the Black Forest. And his parable is also exceptionalstarting from the trigger.

In 2004, Schmidt was an anonymous midfielder at the end of his career, oriented towards dedicating himself to his family and working as a mechanical engineer (degree obtained in Paderborn) for Benteler, a prestigious Austro-German steel company. Thus he accepts an assignment as coach of his latest team (the Delbrcker, sixth series) thinking of an amateur and annual commitment: but the immediate promotion to the Oberliga (fifth series) and two excellent seasons to follow, push him to continue with more challenging, until consecration first to Red Bull-Salzburg and then to Leverkusenwhere his extreme play — very high pressing e gegenpressing
— manages to stand out against the background of other similar assets.

More than the excellent results, (a 4th place in the Bundesliga and eighth-Champions, in any case far from the peaks of the BL of Toppmller and Ballack), certain unmistakable sequences are remembered, such as the menacing and synergistic swarm of certain offensive collective climbs, refrain of certain flows of Milan sacchiano. At one point – in keeping with his somewhat neurotic-obsessive temperament – Schmidt pushes his kick even to thehubris of one’s own principles: see deliberately kicking the ball hard towards the opponent to cause him to miscontrol and organize his own re-aggression on that error.

Arrived in Lisbon after the Beijing eclipse at Guoan and two years at PSV (Dutch Cup and Super Cup), Schmidt has planted his aggressive football in the realm of a school of possession, the Portuguese one, often hypnotic to the limits of lethargic (although at da Luz Jorge Jesus had already sowed a very dynamic 4-4-2 on several occasions).

derived from it a melange, again, unmistakable, that harmonises dribble and sudden pullsdensity of phrasing and density of re-aggression, expectation and acceleration, contraction and relaxation-laser: if different teams, today, hybridize those ingredients (to degrees and in very different ways), Schmidt does it by adapting his knowledge to the football anthropology that hosts it.

And it is striking that that spectacular and effective kick (best attack and best defense: 69 made, 15 conceded) was already in good focus last autumn, when Juve suffered him at home and away (aggregate 6-4 for the Eagles).

Because for (today’s) Inter it won’t be easy

It goes without saying that it won’t be easy for the current Inter

. An Inter, we mean, far from that – compact, dynamic, with many men on the ball – of the double match against Liverpool last year.

It’s not (just) about the technician in the balance; of the offensive involution at the level of men (Lautaro-Lukaku) and overall dynamics, summarized in the 87 shots of the last four matches with just one goal from open play; Of absences like Skriniar’s or of goalkeepers who take turns uncertain.

It is the systemic difficulty in managing that melange, more and more than its interpreters: the building exterior Alex Grimaldo, the omnipresent Norwegian Aursnes, the revived ex Joao Mario, the elusive Neres, the cannibal Ramos…

Even if – among the reasons for trust – one is not secondary: the fact that Inter in the Champions League is a parallel team to the league team, a copy from extra-solar Earth, much more motivated, attentive, continuous. To which are added two small tolling bells: the 7 (seven) distrusted of the Eagles and their home defeat – after 10 victories in a row – in Saturday’s Scudetto clash with Portoteam eliminated by Inter in the round of 16.

Maybe (maybe) the condition flexes; and in any case some slag will remain, also because the title seemed acquired.

Of course, in any case, the defensive rigor shown against Porto (enriched, to Drago, by a brushstroke of Ancelotti’s buoy fate) will not be enough for Inter; it will take more dynamism and more risk-taking, already in the Lisbon Cathedral.