Inter vs Juventus

Juventus and Inter arrived at the game with one aim: victory. Both teams were in the race for an objective and anything less than a win would have compromised Juve’s chances to win a Scudetto and Inter’s odds to reach a Champions League spot. The final 2-3 result in Juve’s favour at Inter came from a characteristic performance by the visitors, who just scraped by the three points with two last minute goals. Despite being one man down for more than 70 minutes Inter put up a worthy fight, troubling Juventus and Spalletti proved once again why, tactically, he’s one of the best managers in Serie A.

Juventus lined up in a 4-3-3 which saw Buffon start behind a backline composed of Cuadrado, Barzagli, Rugani and Alex Sandro, whilst Khedira, Pjanić and Matuidi starred in midfield; Douglas Costa, Higuaín and Mandžukić led the frontline.

Inter shaped in their usual 4-2-3-1 with Handanović in goal; Cancelo, Miranda, Škriniar and D’Ambrosio in defence; Vecino and Brozović in the double pivote and Candreva, Rafinha and Perišić behind the lone striker Icardi.

Inter’s attacking structure

Inter’s 4-2-3-1 shape perfectly suited Juve’s 4-3-3/4-5-1, handing the bianconeri naturally formed man-orientations across the pitch. Therefore, to create positional and numerical superiority situations Candreva was positioned in the left half-space, aside Rafinha,  whilst still having positional freedom to roam to the ball-side  to create a 2v1 between the lines against Pjanić and a rhombus comprising Brozović , Perišić and Rafinha.

Candreva occupies the left half-space and creates a connection rhombus

Furthermore Candreva would drop deep to act as a free-man thus facilitating Inter’s build-up.

With Can