Marked for Marcus Thuram
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad5 Apr 2027
The words a physio says slowly. 32 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
A brace, and Lautaro Martínez takes the afternoon — 8.86
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lautaro Martínez provided it, and the 8.86 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad5 Apr 2027
A season average of 7.22 with 25 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad5 Apr 2027
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match3 Apr 2027
Inter get the job done against Bologna
A 3‑1 win over Bologna, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Marked 8.01 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Market5 Apr 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Marcus Thuram’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings5 Apr 2027
Successful dribbles: 10. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings8 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 25. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad8 Mar 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Inter agree another 2 years.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match6 Mar 2027
A bad afternoon for Inter against Lazio
0‑1 to Lazio, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
Squad8 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Daley Blind
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad8 Mar 2027
Yann Sommer is still paying for one afternoon at Inter
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match1 Mar 2027
Inter refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 58 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Squad1 Mar 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Alessandro Bastoni falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad1 Mar 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Inter are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Mar 2027
Getting past Yann Sommer has become the hardest job in the division
12 clean sheets and counting. Forwards used to back themselves here; now they shoot early, shoot wide, and look for somebody to blame.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
7.93, and no serious argument from anybody who was there. Inter had eleven men on the pitch and one of them decided how it went.
Player ratings1 Mar 2027
Shots: 10, not one of them in. A centre forward is paid for one thing, and on this evidence he has forgotten which thing it is.
Match27 Feb 2027
Ninety minutes, two goalkeepers with clean gloves, and not one finish worth keeping. Napoli will be the happier side with the point.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A brace, and Lautaro Martínez takes the afternoon — 8.77
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Lautaro Martínez provided it, and the 8.77 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Squad15 Feb 2027
22 goals and a season average of 7.21. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Match13 Feb 2027
It finished 3‑1, and it was Lautaro Martínez’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Inter.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
A performance of 8.07 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad15 Feb 2027
The manager has not finished forgetting Hakan Çalhanoğlu's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad15 Feb 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Market15 Feb 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Nicolò Barella’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Player ratings15 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 12. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match6 Feb 2027
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Squad8 Feb 2027
A one-man rearguard from Yann Sommer
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Defensive actions: 25, and a clean sheet at the end of it. A centre-half's best afternoons look like nothing happening, which is precisely the point.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Alessandro Bastoni and Inter agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market8 Feb 2027
Piotr Zieliński wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Inter hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad8 Feb 2027
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings8 Feb 2027
A performance of 8.04 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad8 Feb 2027
11 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad11 Jan 2027
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market11 Jan 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Inter have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Manuel Pinotti is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad11 Jan 2027
Yann Sommer gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
The terraces11 Jan 2027
Everybody has an opinion about Yann Sommer
He is the name in every column and on every phone-in, which is a heavy thing to carry at any age. Some footballers thrive on it; others are quietly finished by it.
Match9 Jan 2027
Inter and Genoa take a point apiece
It finished 1‑1, and it somehow always looked like it would. One of those afternoons where the table moves less than the tempers.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings11 Jan 2027
7 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match2 Jan 2027
Derby day misery for Inter
Losing 1‑3 is one thing; losing to Juventus in a derby is a wound that takes months to close.
Match4 Jan 2027
Inter up to position 2
43 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Squad4 Jan 2027
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Inter will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Market4 Jan 2027
Torino come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Inter did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad4 Jan 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.08, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Squad4 Jan 2027
Daley Blind gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Boardroom4 Jan 2027
$5.6M on the table at Inter
The board have answered with money instead of encouragement, which is the only answer a manager ever wants. Spending it well is now entirely his problem.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Dec 2026
No mercy from Inter
Lecce will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Inter were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Match26 Dec 2026
Inter cannot stop winning
6 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 7.27 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match26 Dec 2026
Inter make home a hard place to visit
12 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad28 Dec 2026
19 goals and a season average of 7.23. Form like that gets noticed well beyond this town.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A hand in 2 of them from Davide Frattesi — 7.98
Marked 7.98. There is a kind of forward whose value only shows up when you count what he was involved in rather than what he finished, and this is the day that argument makes itself.
Squad28 Dec 2026
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Player ratings28 Dec 2026
A performance of 8.09 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad21 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Match19 Dec 2026
Inter make it 5 in a row
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Inter have 5 straight wins of it.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Alessandro Bastoni falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match19 Dec 2026
Three points for Inter, 2‑1 the final word against Parma in a contest settled by the finer margins.
The terraces21 Dec 2026
The crowd has taken to Yoan Bonny
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Player ratings21 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Dec 2026
The manager has not finished forgetting Manuel Akanji's mistake
Publicly it is behind everybody. It is not behind the man who picks the team, and the only place that shows is a team sheet. He will get another chance; he will get it in a match that matters less.
Squad21 Dec 2026
Yann Sommer has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Inter will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market21 Dec 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Inter know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad23 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad23 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings23 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match4 Nov 2026
Inter through in the cup
A 2‑1 win over Pro Patria, and the draw for the next round can be watched with some interest for once.
Match7 Nov 2026
There is no crueller way to lose a football match. Inter scored in the 93th minute, the restart barely happened, and the away end was still standing when the whistle went.
Match4 Nov 2026
Lautaro Martínez wins it after the whistle should have gone
95 minutes played. Lautaro Martínez found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Pro Patria went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The match ball belongs to Lautaro Martínez, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Match9 Nov 2026
Inter are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 26 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Squad9 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Alessandro Bastoni falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Lautaro Martínez was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.76. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Match7 Nov 2026
It finished 3‑2, and it was Lautaro Martínez’s afternoon: on the scoresheet when it mattered, and the reason the points belong to Inter.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match31 Oct 2026
0‑2, and no way to dress it up. A derby defeat follows a supporter to work on Monday, and this one will follow him all week.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 9 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Inter hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad2 Nov 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Federico Dimarco, and the manager let it.
Player ratings2 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad2 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad26 Oct 2026
Alessandro Bastoni falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad26 Oct 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Francesco Pio Esposito was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match24 Oct 2026
Three points for Inter, 2‑0 the final word against Lazio in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Squad26 Oct 2026
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
Player ratings26 Oct 2026
A mark of 7.68, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad5 Oct 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Match3 Oct 2026
Whatever happens, Inter do not lose
7 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
Squad5 Oct 2026
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match3 Oct 2026
Hellas Verona made Inter work for it, but the scoreboard read 3‑2 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Match3 Oct 2026
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. Hellas Verona tried to reorganise, Inter did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Marked 8.24 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings5 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 18. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad5 Oct 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad5 Oct 2026
The award is a small thing with a heavy meaning: for four weeks nobody in this division did his job better. Inter have the trophy on a shelf and the player in the side.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match26 Sep 2026
5‑0, and Lautaro Martínez took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Inter tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A fracture rules Alain Taho out for 17 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Inter will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.84 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.14 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
A defender on the scoresheet, which happens rarely enough that everybody in the ground remembers who took the corner. 1 for him, and a mark of 7.98 for the rest of it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Alessandro Bastoni falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match26 Sep 2026
Whatever happens, Inter do not lose
6 games unbeaten now. Some were earned and some were survived, but a habit is forming — and habits are the hardest thing in football to play against.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad21 Sep 2026
Alain Taho breaks a bone — 25 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Yann Sommer
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings21 Sep 2026
Defensive actions: 17. He was first to everything and second to nothing, and the goalkeeper had an easy day because of it.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Lautaro Martínez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Inter will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad31 Aug 2026
3 goals in one afternoon from one man. The other players were also present, a witness confirmed.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A performance of 9.34 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Match29 Aug 2026
Inter get the job done against Genoa
A 3‑1 win over Genoa, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Market31 Aug 2026
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Inter will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Nicolò Barella has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Inter will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Squad31 Aug 2026
There is no complaint available here and everybody involved knows it, which does not make the walk to the bench any shorter. Form is the only currency in football that cannot be borrowed against.
Market31 Aug 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Inter know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
Squad31 Aug 2026
The division's best last weekend was a Inter man
It is a small honour and it is not nothing: somebody watched every match in the division and decided that Lautaro Martínez was the best thing in any of them.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
8 attempts, none of them in. He got into the right places all afternoon, which is the hard part, and did the easy part badly — and that is the version of a bad day a manager can live with.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Aug 2026
A derby is never about the football alone, but the football helped: 4‑1, and the away end emptied early. Bragging rights renewed for another season.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Inter support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Squad24 Aug 2026
The match ball belongs to Lautaro Martínez, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Market24 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad24 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Petar Sučić and Inter agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Boardroom24 Aug 2026
The ground is getting bigger
The plans are signed off at a capacity of 101185. Decisions like this are judged twenty years later, by people who were not in the room when they were taken.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Lautaro Martínez has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Inter will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
Daley Blind gets the move he always wanted
Footballers are asked about their boyhood club so often that nobody listens to the answer. Daley Blind has just signed for Inter, and for once the answer mattered.
Market10 Aug 2026
Vis Pesaro come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Inter did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Marcus Thuram commits to Inter for another 5 years.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Inter this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad10 Aug 2026
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Market10 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Cristian Carrara again, and this time the name on the line is Monopoli. Inter are listening politely and promising nothing.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Inter heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Federico Dimarco and Inter agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Inter
Hakan Çalhanoğlu was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Words at Inter training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alessandro Bastoni is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market3 Aug 2026
Inter and Yann Sommer are talking past each other
“There is a gap, and pretending there is not helps nobody.” Neither side has moved, and the calendar is working for exactly one of them.
Market3 Aug 2026
Still no offer on the table, and Federico Dimarco’s deal keeps shrinking. In boardroom language, silence this long stops being an oversight and starts being an answer.