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Connor Maguire · 17 May 2026
Right. Let us get into this. Inter Milan, top of Serie A with 85 points from 36 games before kick-off, could not beat Hellas Verona at home. Hellas Verona. A side with 32 points from 36 games. A side that has lost 20 times this season. Inter drew 1-1. At home. Take a moment with that.
The thing is, there is no soft way to say this. When you are top of the table and you drop points at home to a team in the bottom four, that is unacceptable. Full stop. Standards are standards regardless of the occasion, regardless of what is already wrapped up or what might be rested. You put on that shirt, you compete. Inter did not compete hard enough to win this football match.
Listen, I know what some people will say. The title is decided. The season is done. Why risk anyone important. But that kind of thinking is exactly where standards go to die. The players who were on that pitch had a job to do. They did not do it. End of.
To give this some context, Inter went into this fixture sitting first in Serie A with 85 points. The next closest side had 73. That is a twelve-point gap with two games to play. So yes, mathematically, the race was run. But a champion's mentality does not switch off because the trophy is already on the shelf. You win your last games. You win every game you can. That is what champions do. That is the standard. Inter forgot it today.
Hellas Verona, for their part, came here with nothing to lose. They sit 17th. They have 32 points. They were almost certainly playing for pride, or for the manager's job, or for their own contracts next season. That kind of desperation is a dangerous thing. Inter should have been ready for it. They were not ready enough.
Inter scored once. Verona scored once. Both teams to score landed. The under 2.5 goals signal came in. Two goals in a game involving the division's top scorers, 85 goals in the league this season going into the game, and the team that should have been pushing for three points settled for a point and went home. You can dress it up however you like. The basics were not good enough from the home side.
The thing is, clean sheets matter to me. They always have. They reflect organisation, desire, and accountability at the back. Inter have conceded 31 goals this season, which is the joint-best defensive record in the division alongside the fourth-placed side. That number was 31 before this game. It did not stay that way. Verona scored. That should hurt. It should sting every defender on that pitch. If it does not, you have a problem with the attitude inside that dressing room.
I will give them this much. Hellas Verona came to the San Siro, sat in, stayed compact, and nicked a point. A team with 32 points and a goal difference of minus twenty-four came to one of the biggest stadiums in Italian football and left with something. That takes organisation and it takes desire. They competed. You cannot take that away from them.
But let us not get carried away. Verona did not win. They drew. And their season is still a disaster. Twenty losses in 36 games tells you exactly the kind of year they have had. A draw at Inter will not save them from a miserable campaign. It is a moment, nothing more. The real question is what Inter do with the embarrassment of this result.
I do not need a spreadsheet to tell you what went wrong here. This was a failure of basics. Inter did not impose themselves. They did not show the appetite that a side of their quality should show against opposition of Verona's standard. One goal at home. One goal. Against a team that has conceded 48 times this season. That is a finishing problem. That is a desire problem. That is an attitude problem.
The thing is, great sides do not coast. They do not drift through matches because the title is safe. They go out and remind everyone why they are champions. Inter had the chance to close their home campaign with a statement. They produced a footnote instead.
Inter have one game left. Whatever happens in it, the title is theirs. That is a brilliant achievement and I am not going to sit here and pretend this result erases a remarkable season. Twenty-seven wins in 36 games. Eighty-five goals scored. That is a proper title winning record and the squad deserves recognition for it.
But accountability does not take a holiday at the end of a winning season. The players who could not break down Hellas Verona today need to look themselves in the mirror. Verona. At home. One goal. That is not good enough. It does not matter what the standings say. It does not matter what is already decided. When you put that shirt on, you give everything. Today, Inter did not give enough. The result says so. End of.
