MILAN: Zlatan Ibrahimovic came back to haunt his former employers and silence the boo-boys as 10-man AC Milan went back to the top of the table with a 1-0 win at Inter Milan on Sunday.
Ibrahimovic scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot to enrage the Inter fans who once adored him as Milan earned a crucial three points, despite Ignazio Abate’s second half dismissal, to underline their title credentials. Earlier in the day Lazio had briefly gone top as they beat Napoli 2-0 in Rome.
The defeat means Inter dropped to fifth in Serie A, six points behind their arch city rivals but Ibrahimovic insisted there’s a long way to go yet. “There’s still a lot of games left, it’s a bit of a gap but we’ll play one game at a
time,” said the Swede. On 3 minutes Abate got to the byline down the right and crossed for Clarence Seedorf, who should have done far better than head wastefully high.
But just moments later they had won a penalty as Seedorf released Ibrahimovic down the right and as he entered the area he dragged back the ball, only for Marco Materazzi to take his legs out from under him.
Ibrahimovic stepped up amid a cacophony of boos to smash home the spot-kick.
Milan really should have had another as Ibrahimovic again beat the offside trap but his cross to the waiting Mathieu Flamini was imprecise and cut out by a back-tracking Lucio.
Materazzi then took the ball away from Seedorf as Ibrahimovic tried to tee him up from close in. Massimo Ambrosini hit a diagonal ball over the top to the busy Sweden forward who tried a Marco van Basten-esque volley from an angle that fizzed just over.
