#NerazzurriClassics – When Ruben Sosa Masterminded An Inter Milan Win Over Former Club Lazio | OneFootball

On 9th May 1993, Osvaldo Bagnoli’s Inter Milan hosted Lazio in Match Day 30 of the 1992/1993 Serie A season, where Uruguay striker Ruben Sosa masterminded a win against his former club.

The 1991-92 Serie A season was a disaster for Inter. The Nerazzurri finished eighth under the management of former player of Helenio Herrera’s La Grande Inter in the sixties, Luis Suarez.

Therefore, the club parted ways with the former player and appointed Osvaldo Bagnoli as manager at the start of 1992-93 season.

Bagnoli had previously managed Hellas Verona for almost a decade. This was then followed by a two year tenure at Genoa before taking over as manager of Nerazzurri.

Bagnoli’s tenure as manager was also the start of a new cycle for Inter.

After the disappointing eighth place finish the club moved on from the legendary German trio of Andreas Brehme, Lothar Matthaus and Jurgen Klinsmann.

Inter replaced them with the likes of Igor Shalimov, Darko Pancev and Salvatore Schillaci. The new commers struggled to settle into their new team.

However, summer signing Ruben Sosa scored 22 goals in all competitions. Which took the pressure off Pancev and Schillaci.

Ruben Sosa Masterminds Inter Win Over Former Club Lazio

As Match Day 30 came around, Inter were cruising in second place for twenty-weeks in a row. The Nerazzurri were chasing cross-town rivals AC Milan for first place.

Meanwhile, Lazio were comfortably in third place.

However, leading up to the game against Inter, Lazio had managed only two wins in previous eight matches.

Furthermore, with the competition for top three spots in balance, the game was bound to be a hard fought one.

Starting eleven for home side were Walter Zenga, Giuseppe Bergomi, Luigi De Agostini, Nicola Berti, Antonio Paganin, Sergio Battistini, Angelo Orlando, Antonio Manicone, Salvatore Schillaci, Igor Shalimov and Ruben Sosa.

For the visitors Lazio, the starting eleven was, Fernando Orsi, Cristiano Bergodi, Giuseppe Favalli, Roberto Bacci, Luca Luzardi, Roberto Cravero, Diego Fuser, Aron Winter, Karl Riedle, Claudio Sclosa and Guiseppe Signori.

Inter got off to the perfect start, scoring a goal within two minutes from kick-off to take an early lead.

A free-kick approximately thirty yards out from Ruben Sosa took a massive deflection off of Roberto Bacci and looped over the goal keeper for the early lead.

Lazio created ample chances in the first half to look for the equalizer.

However, Walter Zenga’s brilliance in goal prevented the visitors from making their mark on the match thus far.

Ruben Sosa The Architect Behind The Win

Meanwhile, as Lazio committed more men forward in attack and retained possession more, Inter continued creating ample opportunities of their own in attack.

Most of Inter’s chances came from counter-attack opportunities.

Orsi was almost playing as a sweeper for Lazio, coming out aggressively from goal to clear through-balls and overhead passes to on-rushing attackers.

Ruben Sosa’s pace and positioning was constantly making life miserable for Lazio defenders.

However, Inter didn’t capitalize on early chances and game remained at 1-0 at half-time.

In the second half, both sides continued same game plan as first half without many tweaks.

Ruben Sosa missed a golden chance to score the second goal of the match for Inter.

However the aggressive goalkeeping from Orsi stopped the chances in their tracks to keep the scoreline within a goal margin.

Sosa’s goal drought continued in the match as he was unable to get on the score sheet.

However he created an opportunity for Salvatore Schillaci to score Inter’s second goal of the match.

Which Schillaci did. This goal secured 3 points. The goal came around the 82 minutes mark.

Inter won six out it’s last seven league matches, and were in tremendous form down the stretch in a tight title race.

Unfortunately, Inter were unable to catch AC Milan who won the Serie A that season.