18 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Henrikh Mkhitaryan provided it, and the 7.76 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Inter have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
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.
A bone, which is the one injury with a calendar attached. Inter will name a return date and, unusually for this business, will probably be right about it.
The offer from Liverpool for Lautaro Martínez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
13 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.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Inter, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Paris Saint-Germain have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Ivan Provedel. The answer from Inter has not changed — yet.
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.17 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Lautaro Martínez 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.
It is not a grievance and it is not a demand: he wants to play continental football, and he has stopped hiding it. Whether Inter can give him that is a question about the club, not about him.
79 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Inter lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Matteo Farronato will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Inter the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Nothing about the week ahead is ordinary. AC Milan on Saturday, a town that has already started talking about it, and a dressing room that does not need telling what it means.
Mirko Franchi 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.
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.
AC Milan next, and one man in the Inter dressing room knows their training ground better than his own. The reception will tell him what they thought of him.
Cup ties wait for somebody to seize them, and Wellington Silva obliged against Cagliari. 3‑0 on the night, and the name in the next round’s hat is Inter.
Inter asked and Atalanta said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
The offer from Fenerbahce for Hakan Çalhanoğlu was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
The hardest thing about being 18 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Jonas Dahlberg Strand did not need any: 7.82, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Inter, and it is not being withdrawn.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Mirko Franchi will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Inter the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 18-year-old it feels ownership of. Jonas Dahlberg Strand has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Juventus will not enjoy the photographs. Randal Kolo Muani has signed for Inter, and everyone involved understands that this particular deal was never only about football.
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Inter have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Randal Kolo Muani has, at Inter, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
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.
8.31. 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Carlos Augusto wants continental football; whether Inter can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
“I watch every Inter game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Avellino runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 23-year-old it feels ownership of. Petar Sučić has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
8.50. 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.
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.
AC Milan next, which means a week that starts on Monday. Everything else on this page will be forgotten by Saturday; this fixture will not be forgotten for a year.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Lautaro Martínez is on it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Domenico Catalano after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
3‑0. Nights like this are why clubs spend decades trying to qualify for this competition, and they arrive perhaps twice in that time. Everybody who was in the ground will describe it badly for years.
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
John Stones 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.
Marked 9.47 — 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.
5‑0 against IA, and a performance that will change how the rest of the competition talks about this club. Reputations in continental football are built in single evenings and this was one.
Two goals and a mark of 9.45 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Every run ends on an afternoon somebody had marked down as routine. This one went 8 matches, which is long enough that a town had stopped counting, and short enough that it will remember exactly who stopped it.
There is a particular helplessness in conceding 2 times before the twentieth minute. IA tried to reorganise, Inter did not allow it, and the result was written long before it was confirmed.
Marked 8.36 — 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Inter pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
1‑0 against FC Copenhagen, under lights, against people who do not speak the same language as the crowd. These are the evenings a club measures its decade in, and there are never as many of them as anybody expects.
Two goals and a mark of 8.26 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Alessandro Bastoni 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Luís Henrique wants continental football; whether Inter can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
A midfielder is measured on whether the team functions when he is on the pitch, which is nearly impossible to see and completely obvious in retrospect. 13 actions, 6.93, and a manager who will not be substituting him again in a hurry.
“I watch every Inter game from here. That says everything about where my head is.” The loan at Avellino runs its course, but his heart never made the trip.
4 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.
It is the most legitimate ambition in the sport and the hardest for most clubs to satisfy. Lautaro Martínez wants continental football; whether Inter can provide it is a question about the next two seasons, not about him.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 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.
Lautaro Martínez 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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lautaro Martínez. 2‑1 against Bologna, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say John Stones is on it.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
The manager’s verdict
“I am not going to get carried away and I will not let them either. It was a good day. There will be harder ones.” Domenico Catalano kept it short after the 2‑1 win, which is what managers do when they are happy.
1‑0 against Charleroi, and a performance that will be described to people who were not there for the rest of the season. Nicolò Barella was at the centre of the description.
The offer from Napoli for Josep Martínez was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
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.
Marked 8.11 — 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.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Inter pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
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.
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Lautaro Martínez. 1‑0 against Genoa, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Mirko Franchi 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.
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.
The dugout14 Sep 2026
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Domenico Catalano, on a 1‑0 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
The one version of being left out a player cannot argue with, and the one he takes worst. Somebody else has been better and the team sheet says so, in public, every week until it changes.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Lautaro Martínez signs something — a contract at Inter or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.