Inter claim three-way pre-season tournament

Serie A champions Inter Milan scored a psychological victory over rivals AC Milan and Juventus by winning the three-way TIM Trophy pre-season tournament in Bari on Friday.

The three teams played each other for 45 minutes each, meaning each side played an entire 90 minutes throughout the evening.

Having earlier beaten Juventus 1-0, Inter then defeated Milan on penalties following a 0-0 draw to claim the trophy.

Milan finished second after they beat Juventus on penalties after a 1-1 stalemate.

The first 45 minutes of the day saw the champions tackle last season’s major under-achievers, Juventus.

Inter dominated throughout and the 1-0 scorline, achieved through Wesley Sneijder’s 25th minute wonder strike, was kind on Juve.

Rafael Benitez’s side had already created half a dozen chances by the time Sneijder took the ball from 25 yards out, avoided Momo Sissoko and curled a stunning shot into the top corner and past Alex Manninger’s despairing dive.

Manninger had been the only person to stand in Inter’s way with a pair of important saves from Goran Pandev while he did well to keep out Maicon’s dipping volley.

Samuel Eto’o also headed over and Victor Obinna and Esteban Cambiasso both had rasping shots fly just wide of the upright.

Juve only once created any danger but Cambiasso charged down Sissoko’s drive and Felipe Melo was wasteful with the follow-up.

Milan had new goalkeeper Marco Aurelia to thank for their victory against Juventus as he made a string of crucial saves.

Amelia had already made brilliant one-handed stops from Diego and David Lanzafame before Ronaldinho gave Milan the lead.

Nigerian Nnamdi Oduamadi, known as Odu, chipped the ball out to the left of the area to the unmarked Ronaldinho who curled the ball around goalkeeper Marco Storari.

When Amelia also saved one-on-one against Amauri it seemed Milan would hold on but Lanzafame set up Diego to finish crisply across the goalkeeper and take the game to penalties.

Still Amelia would not be denied and he saved from both Simone Pepe and Amauri to give Milan the win.

Following a tame 0-0 draw the two Milan neighbours also went to penalties.

This time is was not the goalkeepers who made the difference as five players missed, with Ronaldinho’s chip onto the corner of post and bar the crucial miss to give Inter a 3-2 win.

Serie A gets underway in two weeks’ time, a week after the Italian Super Cup between Inter and AS Roma.