The blockbuster tie of the Europa League quarter-finals sets Inter Milan against Bayer Leverkusen with both sides having progressed on Thursday. Antonio Conte’s Inter side played a one-off game with Spanish side Getafe at the neutral Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen, Germany and emerged victorious on a 2-0 score-line. Goals either side of half-time from Romelu Lukaku and Christian Eriksen were enough for the Nerazzurri to progress while Peter Bosz and Leverkusen took a 3-1 advantage back to the BayArena in Germany in their tie with Rangers. A goal from Moussa Diaby gave ‘Die Werkself’ a 1-0 win and a 4-1 aggregate victory over Steven Gerrard and his men. These two teams were both dumped out of the Champions League having finished third in their respective groups and judging on the last round perhaps it is fair to say we are looking at two Champions League clubs playing Europa League football but only one can make it to the final four.
Although this game will take place at the Merkur Spiel-Arena in Dusseldorf of Leverkusen’s home country I do feel Inter can go overcome their opponents and even go all the way in this competition. Alexis Sanchez signed on a permanent basis from Manchester United in midweek and I feel his old employers are the only team who could possibly defeat the Italians but those two can’t meet until the final. Inter come into this game on a four-game winning streak and have kept five successive clean sheets. The Italian side have only lost one of their 15 matches since their season restarted and a win over Getafe means they have won each of their three knockout games since they dropped into the Europa League.
Bayer Leverkusen returned to action after a month off with a win over Rangers to come through 4-1 on aggregate and their final position of 5th in the Bundesliga means they will need to go all the way in this tournament if they are to play Champions League football next season. This could be Kai Havertz’s last outing in red and black with speculation surrounding his future continuing. Leverkusen hadn’t played since a 4-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the DFB Pokal final back on the 4th of July and it wasn’t until Havertz went into the false 9 position that they started to play so he is pivotal to anything they do in this game. The German side won six of their 11 matches as the domestic season resumed but did appear to fail in games that were must win particularly in a 2-0 defeat away at Hertha Berlin and a 1-1 draw with a Schalke team who were in the middle of an injury crisis and looked condemned to defeat before a ball was kicked.
Inter arguably could have won their first Scudetto title since 2009 if the season wasn’t paused to deal with this pandemic but nonetheless they finished their domestic season strongly and showed that win an impressive 2-0 win over Getafe who threw everything at Antonio Conte’s men. Inter have kept five clean sheets in a row and one of those came against an Atalanta side who scored 98 goals in the Serie A this season so I’m confident that Inter will have too much for Leverkusen and take their place in the final four.