Holders Inter beat Serie B team Parma 2-1 in overtime at San Siro to advance to the Coppa Italia quarterfinals, but not without surviving a scare.
Before Lautaro Martinez scored the equalizer with Inter's first chance on goal in the 88th minute, Stanko Juric's fierce effort toward the conclusion of the first half appeared to be enough for Fabio Pecchia's club. Before Francesco Acerbi's spectacular header gave the Nerazzurri the victory, they were struggling to hold on at times in extra time.
Danilo D'Ambrosio, Robin Gosens, and Denzel Dumfries were among the seven changes made by Simone Inzaghi to the team that drew 2-2 at Monza on Saturday. Gianluigi Buffon started in goal for Parma, but the 44-year-old had little to do for the first 87 minutes of the match.
After a quiet start, the Serie B team unexpectedly took the lead in the 38th minute when Adrian Bernabe's forward ball was flicked by Simon Sohm into the path of Juric, who had only been on the field for 12 minutes after replacing the injured Dennis Man. Juric's rocket of a shot went past Andre Onana's vain dive.
Inzaghi turned to his substitutes, including Edin Dzeko, as Inter struggled to break down Parma in the second half. He went for it with an attacking trio of the Bosnian alongside Martinez and Joaquin Correa, and it eventually paid off.
To the relief of the home crowd, a deep ball from Kristjan Asllani was only cleared as far as Martinez with just over two minutes of regulation time remaining. Martinez's shot deflected off Yordan Osorio and past Buffon to force extra time, but not before the former Juventus goalkeeper made a deft save to prevent Dzeko from scoring in stoppage time.
Inter stepped it up in the second half and won it thanks to Acerbi after Buffon punched a Federico Dimarco cross straight to the waiting center-back, who headed it back over him and into the net. The impressive visitors took the game to Inter in the extra 30 minutes, with Antoine Hainaut firing just wide after intercepting a loose pass from Roberto Gagliardini.
WINNING IS ALL THAT COUNTS FOR INTER
While Parma is sixth in Serie B and Inter is fourth in Serie A, the visitors had only won once in their previous six games.
Therefore, it was quite unexpected to see them come close to what would have been a well-deserved victory without Martinez's intervention.
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