They arrived in hope, buoyed by the return of Rafael Leão on the left wing, suited up for an Inter rearguard. Lautaro Martínez fires in the second leg winner. Now it too has gone, there will be an increasing chorus of voices wondering whether Pioli is part of the solution or part of the problem.

This semi-final represented Pioli’s last chance of salvaging something from the season. This has been a dispiriting campaign for Milan, their Serie A title defence crumbling after the winter break and now even the top four looking like a faint hope. On the touchline Stefano Pioli, dressed immaculately in a suit and trainers like a man intending to run home from work, raged at the unfairness of it all. Here again they were painfully lacking in pace and imagination, a team with 57% possession but just one shot in the second half, a team who offered only lethargy where urgency was required, a squad probably too thin and too inexperienced to challenge in two competitions at once. So too Martínez, now just a game away from winning the World Cup and Champions League in the space of six months.Īnd so to Milan, a crashing disappointment who from the very first whistle last Wednesday never really looked like adding to their seven European Cups. So too Acerbi, a Milan native (and former Milan player) who has beaten bereavement, depression, alcoholism and testicular cancer to reach this point, and for whom this dominant and fearless performance helped to seal the most personal of triumphs. But there is also a kind of deadly honesty to them: men of conviction, men of skill and steel, who over 180 minutes simply stood taller and made the braver decisions.ĭzeko was magnificent again: a colossal and utterly disruptive presence who seemed to run long periods of this game with his backside alone. And from the English perspective there is perhaps a tendency to gaze upon this wrought and wizened squad, with the 37-year-old Edin Dzeko up front and the 35-year-old Francesco Acerbi in the centre of defence, and wonder just how they got this far. Simone Inzaghi’s side will probably go into the final on 10 June as one of the least fancied Champions League contenders in recent history. But the greatest prize of all remains tantalisingly within reach. Here their great city rivals were snuffed out, dismantled piece by piece, and finally picked off via a goal by Lautaro Martínez. The exuberance and colour of their first-leg victory gave way to something darker and grittier here: not so much a semi-final as a turf war, the sort of game that is to be endured rather than enjoyed. For Internazionale, the road to Istanbul was paved with bad intentions.

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