Inter out of Champions League despite 1-1 draw against PSV
MILAN (AP) — Mauro Icardi rescued a 1-1 draw for Inter Milan against PSV Eindhoven on Tuesday but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Italian team from being eliminated from the Champions League.
Inter needed to better Tottenham’s result at Barcelona to progress to the round of 16 but that match also finished 1-1, thanks to Lucas Moura’s late equalizer.
It brought Inter’s first season back in the Champions League since 2011-12 to a swift end.
Both Inter and Spurs finished the group stage with eight points but the Premier League side took second spot in Group B thanks to the away goal it scored in the 2-1 defeat at Inter in September. Tottenham beat Inter 1-0 at home last month.
Inter dominated at San Siro, where it had 22 shots compared to five for PSV, but the Dutch side took a surprising lead in the 13th minute through Hirving Lozano.
However, Inter had gone behind in all of its five previous group matches — and recovered in three of them.
And so it proved again for Luciano Spalletti’s side as Icardi pounced with 17 minutes remaining for his fourth goal in the competition.
Inter poured forward in search of the winner, increasing their efforts after news of Spurs’ equalizer filtered through, but couldn’t find a breakthrough.
Inter will be left to regret its wasted opportunities, which included Ivan Perisic heading Mauro Icardi’s long ball off the left post in the sixth minute during a strong start for the hosts.
The Nerazzurri fans were further buoyed by Barcelona taking the lead against Spurs but shortly after the stadium went quiet.
Kwadwo Asamoah was dispossessed by Steven Bergwijn, who raced down the right flank and crossed for Lozano to head in at the far post.
Matters almost got immediately worse for Inter following another Asamoah error but Samir Handanovic rushed off his line to deny Luuk de Jong.
PSV stuck to its tactics of sitting back and hoping to hit Inter on the break, and the hosts continued to waste their opportunities.