Internazionalevs
Club BruggeNobody had Club Brugge winning this one. Our pre-match read made Internazionale a 76% favorite at San Siro, and on paper that looked reasonable — Inter at home in the Champions League, the better squad, the crowd behind them. Then Nicolo Tresoldi happened.
The Belgian side's Italian-born forward scored three times and was the story of the night, turning what should have been a comfortable Inter evening into something San Siro will want to forget quickly.
The First Half Sets the Table
The game had already turned edgy before the first goal arrived. Jorne Spileers picked up a yellow in the 27th minute, then Hakan Çalhanoglu followed two minutes later, and the foul count on both sides was climbing. Out of that friction came the opener: Tresoldi stepped up and converted a penalty in the 30th minute to put Brugge ahead.
Inter steadied. Federico Dimarco found Lautaro Martínez just before halftime, and the Argentine buried it in the 44th to level things. Manuel Akanji collected a yellow along the way, but Inter went into the break feeling like the night was still theirs to control.
They had 53% of the ball, 30 shots across the full 90, and a pass accuracy of 90%. Brugge's goalkeeper was kept busy — nine saves on the night. None of it was enough.
Tresoldi Finishes the Job
The second half belonged almost entirely to Brugge. Carlos Forbs set up Tresoldi for his second in the 63rd minute, and then in the 74th Tresoldi needed no help at all — his third goal, unassisted, put Brugge up 3-1. ¡Ala gran púchica! — el hat-trick de Tresoldi, complete and clinical, and suddenly Inter were in serious trouble.
Lautaro pulled one back in the 81st, his second of the night, and for a moment San Siro believed. But Romeo Vermant, assisted by Forbs again, made it 4-2 in the 87th and effectively ended the contest. Ange-Yoan Bonny got a consolation off an Aleksandar Stankovic assist deep in stoppage time to make it 3-4, but that was all it amounted to — consolation.
Brugge's discipline frayed late: Jan Virgili and Lee Han-Beom were both booked within two minutes of each other around the hour mark, and Felix Lemarechal added a sixth-minute stoppage-time yellow as the visitors killed the clock. Thirteen fouls to Inter's six tells you how hard Brugge worked to hold what they had.
The Verdict
Inter will feel robbed by the scoreline given the volume of chances they created — 12 shots on target and only three goals to show for it is a brutal return. But Brugge were ruthless with theirs, converting four from eight on target, and Tresoldi gave them something no one predicted when the night began.
The question now is what this result does to Inter's Champions League positioning, and whether Brugge can carry this kind of efficiency into their next European assignment. On this showing, you can't rule them out of anything.
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