Tresoldi's hat trick stuns Inter as Club Brugge pulls off the upset in Milan

Three goals from Nicolò Tresoldi, one of them from the penalty spot, and a dramatic Romeo Vermant strike in the 86th minute were enough for Club Brugge to walk away from Giuseppe Meazza with a 3-4 win, in a match Internazionale nearly salvaged all the way to the final whistle. Ange-Yoan Bonny made it 3-4 in the 92nd minute, but there was no time left for anything more.

The result leaves Inter pointless after two Champions League outings, while Brugge picks up its first win of the tournament. None of this matched the pre-match expectations: our model had given Inter a 54% chance of winning, just 23% for a draw and 23% for a visitors' win, with an expected goals projection of 2.16 for the home side and 1.40 for Brugge. Reality turned out to be exactly the opposite: the Belgian side won, and the match finished with seven goals on the board.

A match that slipped away from Inter in the details

The home side started the brighter of the two, with shots from Andy Diouf and Marcus Thuram that failed to find the net, but Brugge struck first from the penalty spot: Hakan Çalhanoglu fouled Carlos Forbs inside the box in the 28th minute and was shown a yellow card, and Tresoldi made no mistake from twelve yards a minute later, curling a right-footed shot into the top corner. Inter's equalizer came almost at the stroke of halftime: Lautaro Martínez, after an assist from Federico Dimarco on the break, finished with his right foot to make it 1-1 going into the break.

In the second half, Brugge pulled ahead twice more with the same protagonist. Tresoldi struck again in the box in the 62nd minute, assisted by Forbs, to make it 1-2, and repeated the trick in the 73rd with a low shot inside the post for 1-3. Inter answered through Lautaro, who scored with his left foot in the 80th minute to make it 2-3 and complete a brace on the night. But just as it looked like Inter might complete the comeback, Vermant, freshly introduced off the bench, finished right-footed off a Forbs assist on another counterattack to make it 2-4 in the 86th. Bonny, also a substitute, pulled one back in the 92nd with a shot into the top corner assisted by Aleksandar Stankovic, but time ran out before Inter could find another.

The numbers behind the match

Inter dominated possession and generated more offensive volume, but could not translate that into the final score.

The xG calculated after the fact from the match's shots backs up that territorial dominance by Inter: 4.295 compared to Brugge's 3.244. This is our own estimate based on what was generated on the field, not a prediction, and it confirms that Cristian Chivu's side had the material to win the match but failed to make it count when it mattered most.

What the result means

For Internazionale, coached by Cristian Chivu, the stumble leaves the club pointless so far in the tournament. For Club Brugge, with Ivan Leko on the bench, the trip to Milan turns into its first high point of the phase. In the standings, just three points separate the two sides: Brugge has 3 points from two matches played, while Inter sits on 0 after also playing two, a gap that, this early in the tournament, still says little about what's to come but leaves Inter with work to do, and fast.