Ten-man Inter finally break through

Inter began with some urgency. Petar Sucic’s interception quickly sent Marcus Thuram through for an early chance, and Hakan Calhanoglu drove just wide, but the game soon settled into something far less convincing for the home side. Shakhtar grew into it, moved the ball with more assurance and spent long stretches looking like the team less burdened by the occasion.

Josep Martinez had to claw away Valeriy Bondar’s header, and Oleh Ocheretko went close as Shakhtar ended the first half the stronger side. That pattern carried on after the restart. Inter looked tense, blunt and too easily unsettled whenever possession broke down.

Cristian Chivu’s triple change on the hour at least jolted the game. Thuram curled an effort that was tipped around the post, and for a moment Inter seemed capable of imposing themselves. Instead the match twisted further against them when Alessandro Bastoni collected two yellow cards in the space of two minutes, first in a tussle with Alisson Santana and then for a shove on Ocheretko after a corner.

That should have left Inter exposed. Instead it stripped the game down to one direct action. Substitute Henrikh Mkhitaryan, on against his former club, launched a pass from the centre circle into the path of Carlos Augusto, who cushioned it on his chest, drew the goalkeeper and flicked the finish underneath him with the outside of the boot.

It was a clever finish in a match short on clarity. Inter had spent much of the night looking nervous when asked to build anything patient or coherent, but the goal came from speed, space and a single clean decision.

They still had to survive it. Thuram later rolled a good chance across for Mkhitaryan, whose heavy touch wasted the chance to make it 2-0, and Martinez was then forced into two sharp saves in quick succession, first from a deflected Newerton effort and then from Mykola Matviyenko’s close-range header.

So Inter have their first points, and they earned them in the most uneasy way possible: not by controlling the match, but by enduring it, then taking the one opening that mattered.