Three takeaways from Juvenil A’s 3-0 win over Inter Milan

On Sunday, the U-19s turned on the style to beat Juventus. Today they needed something quite different to overcome Inter Milan and, despite goals from Marvin Park, Miguel Gutierrez and Ivan Morante, were made to work for their victory.

Here is what you need to takeaway from the game.

Real Madrid were clinical and a little lucky

Inter Milan had plenty of chances to make a real match of this, especially after going down to 10 men (because the Youth League laughs in the face of logic). That they only managed one shot on target in the entire match brutally reflects how poor they were in dangerous areas.

Real Madrid, on the other hand, were clinical in front of goal following Victor Chust’s penalty miss. Park will feel particularly vindicated from his goal having missed some golden chances beforehand. Raul will be happy to walk away with a place in the semi-final despite his side not playing at their very best, however, he and the rest of the team will know that there is plenty to improve on heading into undoubtedly their biggest test of the knockouts so far.

Salzburg are the only former winners of the UEFA Youth League left. Just the goalkeeper survives from the 2017 championship side so both sides are evenly matched in terms of experience, however, Salzburg oversaw the defending champions in the playoff rounds for the knockouts and just came out the victors in a thrilling 4-3 game against Lyon. They are little more battle-harden than Real so far which makes them a dangerous prospect for Saturday’s semi-final.

The set pieces need some work

Photo by Harold Cunningham - UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images

Juventus hit double figures for corners in the weekend game and Inter had seven today. Though neither of the Italians really made the most of the set piece chances, Inter dominated in the department today. Their lone shot on target came from a corner and I Nerazzurri won three others but failed to challenge Luis Lopez in goal, including one where Pablo Ramon headed the ball straight into the feet of a Inter player who, miraculously, hit the ball wide with the goal at his mercy.

Even when Real managed to get their feet on a clearance, they were poor playing the ball out from the back and often put themselves back under pressure from coughing up possession. Both Blanco and Morante were much quieter in midfield today and Real really missed their distribution from deep. Heading into semi-finals, a clean set ball, particularly defending corners, will be crucial. Not just for avoiding pressure, but also for launching counter attacks.

Israel Salazar made his debut and maybe should of scored.

He featured for Juvenil A in friendlies last summer, however, he finally made his competitive debut in the final ten minutes and came within inches of scoring a debut day goal.