Match report: Inter Milan 1-0 Porto
Romelu Lukaku emerged from the Inter Milan bench to score a crucial winner against 10-man FC Porto in their UEFA Champions League round-of-16 first-leg clash.
The result ends Dragões’ stunning 23-game unbeaten streak and puts the Nerazzurri in pole position to reach the last eight.
With Inter bidding to make it to the UCL quarter-finals for the first time in over a decade, it’s perhaps unsurprising that they didn’t throw caution to the wind early on against the in-form visitors.
Lautaro Martínez and Hakan Çalhanoğlu still had chances for the hosts with a miscued header and a cheeky effort at the near post, but the best opportunities came towards the end of the half.
Porto fired the first warning shot as Marko Grujić paid the price for choosing power over precision from close range, seeing his low strike saved before Galeno headed the rebound off target.
They were let off the hook by their goalkeeper, Diogo Costa, in first-half stoppage time as a superb reflex save left Alessandro Bastoni baffled as to how his point-blank header didn’t find the net.
The pendulum continued to swing one way and then the other after the break as Nicolò Barella and Mehdi Taremi traded half-chances.
The impressive Inter goalkeeper, André Onana, then wowed the San Siro with a spectacular double save before Porto were dealt a hammerblow by referee Srdjan Jovanovic, who showed Otávio a second yellow card for a late challenge on Çalhanoğlu.
Fresh from the bench, Lukaku capitalised by converting his own rebound after a towering header struck the upright.
Victory leaves Inter unbeaten in six and manager Simone Inzaghi has every chance of closing out the show against former team-mate and opposite number Sérgio Conceição in the return fixture on March 14.
The Porto boss has his own incentives to prevail, having spent two seasons with the Nerazzurri during his playing days.
