Chelsea 1-2 Inter Milan
Luciano Spalletti’s Inter Milan might have finished seventh in the Serie A last season, but their performance in the International Champions Cup Singapore – capped by a 2-1 win over Premier League champions Chelsea – certainly gives their supporters plenty of hope for the upcoming campaign.
Few sports betting fan indeed expected them to make life hard for the online betting favourites Chelsea, especially with Antonio Conte and his Blues aiming to bounce back from their abysmal showing against Bayern a few days ago. However, the Italian side showed guts and instead defied betting odds with a dominating performance at the National Stadium.
And here are Inter Milan now crowned with the unofficial title as champions of the Singapore leg of the tournament.
The scoreline suggests that the game was tight and close but that was never the case, and the eye test will tell you that.
Chelsea struggled for the most part and showed defensive inconsistencies throughout. And only thanks to a bizarre second-half own goal by Geoffrey Kondogbia – which could be considered as the highlight of the game – that they were able to score and stay in the match up until the final whistle.
Willian and Michy Batshuayi did their best to spark the Chelsea attack, but they were unable to poke a hole on the strong Inter defence.
Inter Milan, on the other hand, were clearly on the front foot right from the start as they put pressure on Chelsea early; and although they missed a couple of chances to break the deadlock, their aggressiveness paid off when Stevan Jovetic was fouled by Cesar Azpilicueta inside the box.
Jovetic took the penalty in added time, only for keeper Thibaut Courtois to deflect it, but the Montenegrin striker was quick on the rebound and knocked the ball into the net from a few yards out.
The Milan-based club started brighter in the second, keeping the momentum on their side. They almost doubled their lead 30 seconds after the restart when Jovetic found the back of the net again, but the referee called an offside and cancelled the goal.
Nonetheless, it didn’t take much time for Inter to score again as Jovetic and Ivan Perisic linked up on the counter-attack – with the latter quickly firing an incredible low shot to the bottom right corner.
Inter could have scored more, though to no avail, while Chelsea was given a lifeline after Kondogbia’s 74th-minute error. The Blues tried to find an equaliser and thought they got it when Batshuayi fired home on 87 minutes, but it was eventually ruled out for offside, leaving them still a point behind in the dying seconds.
The loss—and their winless Singapore tour—will leave Conte and Chelsea plenty to contemplate ahead of their Community Shield bout against Arsenal.
For Inter Milan, meanwhile, they are off to a great start, and they will hope to build on this tournament and their remaining friendlies before the new Serie A season starts.
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