Milan Derby as it happened and Review

The latest Derby Della Madonnina fixture saw a Milan side that hadn't won since the 19th of October line up against a Inter side that haven't been that convincing lately. Also this will be the start of Roberto Mancini's second reign at the San Siro. 

The game started relatively slowly but just eight minutes in Icardi had a wonderful chance which he squandered and slotted it right into the goalie. We are use to seeing lots of ferocious challenges in the Milan derby and we saw it again just thirteen minutes in as Dodo came out worst for wear in a challenge with a gash to his head.  Nine minutes later the scoring was opened with a wonderful volleyed finish from Jeremy Menez after a great ball from El Shaarawy.

Few chances had come since the early goal and in the sixtieth minute as Obi smashed home from outside the box and rare goal for the Nigerian. Fifteen minutes later Fernando Torres leaves the field for Honda and the Japan international brought lot's more energy to the side than the Spaniard did. Just minutes after the substitutions El Shaarawy went through on goal and misses a sitter after poor goalkeeping gives El Shaarawy the option of an almost fully open goal but he smashes the crossbar. In the 78th minute Icardi scrapes the post after a great ball into the box from Guarin who worked hard all game. The game ended 1-1 and both teams come away honours even.

There are many things that would distress me if I was a fan of either club. Firstly apart from one occasion we saw no real big challenges or personally battles throughout the game and we have come a custom to seeing this in recent occasions of this fixture. Lot's of players also fail to show much passion as well, many of them seemed unmotivated and this surprised me, surely the history behind the fixture is enough to motivate any player? 

The positives are that both defences looked pretty solid, considering both sides haven't been great at the back this season, Mexes and Zapata seemed to have a good understanding between each other and Mattia De Sciglio also looked good going back and forward. But both teams attacks were below standard as Icardi looked very wasteful in front of goal and Torres found it hard to even get infront of goal. 

This is something that I hope to continue, I will hopefully try to write about a European fixture every week (not including England) for example Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and maybe even the Portuguese Premiere division.