Serie A

In partnership with

Football Italia

·5. April 2025

Serie A | Parma 2-2 Inter: Chivu comeback stuns leaders

Former Inter player Cristian Chivu might’ve stalled his old club’s Scudetto hopes, because Parma came back from 2-0 down to hold the league leaders.

The Nerazzurri were fresh off a 1-1 Coppa Italia semi-final draw with Milan and preparing for Tuesday’s Champions League quarter-final against Bayern Munich, but were in no position to take their foot off the gas in Serie A, as Napoli were just three points behind. Lautaro Martinez returned after an injury on international duty, but Mehdi Taremi, Denzel Dumfries, Piotr Zielinski and suspended Nicolò Barella were still out of action. Parma had steadied the ship under coach Cristian Chivu, but Matteo Cancellieri, Valentin Mihaila, Gabriel Charpentier, Mateusz Kowalski, Alessandro Circati, Yordan Osorio and Adrian Benedyczak missed out. Simone Inzaghi watched from the stands on his 49th birthday.

OneFootball Videos

See how it all unfolded on the Liveblog.

Parma should’ve opened the scoring on 10 minutes when Emanuele Valeri rolled across from the left for Ange-Yoan Bonny, but Yann Sommer made a desperate reaction save from eight yards.

Instead, Inter broke through with a bit of luck, as first the ricochet off a Parma player landed at the feet of Federico Dimarco, then the roll across got another slight touch off a defender to find Matteo Darmian at the back post, his finish bouncing in off the inside of the upright.

Lautaro Martinez steered a free header wide, while three teammates all failed to get the final touch on a Hakan Calhanoglu free kick across the six-yard box.

Sommer made an even more remarkable reaction save when Bonny dribbled through a crowd and pulled it back for Dennis Man.

Zion Suzuki was also called into action when Lautaro Martinez redirected the wayward Marcus Thuram strike from six yards.

Darmian ballooned over on the half-volley from a Thuram knockdown, but Inter doubled their lead in truly chaotic circumstances.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan sprung the offside trap to go clear down the right, his cross should’ve been an easy finish for Thuram, who horribly shinned the finish from eight yards, saw it loop up into the air and was also fortunate that Pontus Almqvist got the goal-line clearance awfully wrong too. Thuram, who was born in Parma, looked slightly embarrassed to have scored that way.

epa12011895 Inter’s Marcus Thuram scores the 0-2 goal during the Italian Serie A soccer match Parma Calcio vs FC Internazionale at Ennio Tardini stadium in Parma, Italy, 5 April 2025. EPA-EFE/ELISABETTA BARACCHI

Chivu made several changes, but Inter were forced into one for Alessandro Bastoni’s left knee issue.

The hosts were more enterprising after the break and got a deserved goal, as Bonny with his back to goal laid it off for Adrian Bernabe to drill hard and low into the near bottom corner from well outside the box with his left boot.

Suddenly the crowd was right behind Parma too, as Sommer had to flap a Bonny dinked assist off the feet of Jacob Ondrejka.

The comeback was completed within nine minutes, as Ondrejka surged forward and saw his shot take a decisive deflection off Francesco Acerbi to wrongfoot Sommer for 2-2.

Alessandro Vogliacco prevented Marko Arnautovic tapping in a Yann Bisseck pull-back at the near post and Bisseck’s free header was wide on the resulting corner.

Ondrejka’s first touch let him down on a Drissa Camara counter-attack, but Marco Pellegrino almost won it for Parma in stoppages, sliding in to meet a low cross and grazing the woodwork.