While the weather forecast for tonight’s game says about 20 degrees celsius and some rain, it will certainly be a fiery atmosphere inside San Siro.
La Gazzetta dello Sport (seen below) recall that the Milan derby has never been played with the two teams level on points and alone at the top of the Serie A standings.
It is therefore an unprecedented high-altitude derby, with the common goal of climbing even higher. Back in 1961-62, Milan and Inter played level on points at the top of the table but Fiorentina were also level with them, so today is a bit different.
Roma and Lazio have faced each other ten times on equal points, the only time in which they were co-leaders was in 1972-73 (on the sixth matchday), but they were also level with the Milanese clubs.
Torino and Juventus faced each other a dozen times on equal points at the start of the round, in a couple of cases at the top of the class: in 1935-36 together with Bologna; in 1948-49 with Inter and Lucchese. Sampdoria and Genoa have never faced each other as league leaders.
Inter and Milan climbed up to the top with three wins out of three: Simone Inzaghi’s men without conceding a single goal, Stefano Pioli’s with the launching of three of the new signings.
Inzaghi introduced Sommer and above all he discovered Thuram, while Pioli was dragged to the summit by the physicality of Loftus-Cheek and the decisiveness of Pulisic.
Both managers have been able to lean on their scorers – Lautaro for Inter, Giroud for Milan – while Theo Hernandez and Leao have chipped in for the Rossoneri. Thus, Milan became the capital of Italian football.
In reality it is just the first stage of the climb, which for both has one objective: to be the first to touch get a second star. They also followed a similar path on the market, without crazy spending and both in the direction of financial sustainability.
Inter closed the summer budget with virtually no net spend, focusing on a combination of young and old, investments and free signings. Milan spent the €80m received from the sale of Tonali, in addition to the budget allocated by UEFA as a Champions League prize.
The most expensive players cost €20m (with bonuses on top) but those are not crazy expenses in this market and the purchases are also proving to be functional, paying off the investments.
