Milan: Inter Milan fought back from two goals down to beat AC Milan 4-2 and move level with Juventus at the top of the Italian league after an extraordinary derby match on Sunday.
All Inter’s goals came after the break and Stefan de Vrij who scored Inter’s third put the Nerrazzurri transformation down to Antonio Conte’s halftime team talk.
It was two different matches, the Inter defender said. “The coach made us understand what wasn’t going well, what we had to do differently. He psyched us up to go back out onto the pitch differently, as we did.
We believed right until the end. We knew it was a very important match for us, for the standings, for the fans, for the city and you saw that in the second half.
It was a pulsating match at San Siro. Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored one and set up another for Ante Rebic to give Milan a 2-0 lead at halftime but Inter was level less than 10 minutes after the break following goals from Marcelo Brozovic and Matías Vecino.
De Vrij completed the comeback in the 70th minute and Romelu Lukaku sealed the result in stoppage time. Inter and Juventus, which fell to a shock defeat at Hellas Verona on Saturday, are a point ahead of Lazio after the capital side won 1-0 at Parma.
It was Milan’s first defeat since Ibrahimovic rejoined the club at the start of the year.
“It’s difficult to explain. The first half was practically perfect. The second was completely the opposite,” Ibrahimovic said. “We told ourselves to be careful in the first 15 minutes of the second half, but we conceded two goals and then from there everything went wrong.
I think it shows a lack of experience. When you’re winning a match 2-0 you have to know how to control the match and manage it better.