Inter slumps from Champions League finalist to playoffs exit on shocking loss to Bodø/Glimt

MILAN — Nine months after swaggering to the Champions League final, Inter Milan were dumped out of the tournament in the playoff round, stunned 2-1 at home by Norwegian champions Bodø/Glimt and eliminated 5-2 on aggregate in one of the competition’s greatest upsets.

The decisive blow came Tuesday evening at a sparsely populated San Siro, where Marcus Thuram and company battered the Scandinavians with 32 shots but found only the net once, while Bodø/Glimt goalkeeper Nikita Haikin produced a string of reflex saves to preserve the visitors’ advantage built in the first leg.

Inter had needed at least two goals to overturn a 3-1 deficit from Norway and began with intent, yet for all their possession and 552 completed passes, the Nerazzurri were picked off on the counter, the final scoreline sealing a historic triumph for the Arctic club that earlier this season already toppled Manchester City and Atlético Madrid and held Borussia Dortmund.

Coach Cristian Chivu, appointed last summer after Simone Inzaghi’s departure, refused to downplay the scale of the defeat.

“We know there’s a lot of competitiveness in the Champions League. If teams get to this stage it means they have something,” Chivu said. “They showed it against Dortmund, against Madrid, against City, against us twice. It’s a team which has energy. We could have done better in Norway, we could have done better today, too, but unfortunately it didn’t go how we wanted.”

The Romanian’s assessment underscored how steeply Inter’s European stock has fallen. Twelve months ago they eliminated Bayern Munich and Barcelona en route to a final showdown, only to be humbled 5-0 by Paris Saint-Germain. Domestic silverware also eluded them: they lost to AC Milan in the Coppa Italia semifinals and finished second to Napoli in Serie A.

Hopes of a refresh proved fleeting. The club spent modestly last summer, adding Ange-Yoan Bonny, Luis Henrique, Petar Sučić and Manuel Akanji while keeping an aging spine intact. Results on the continent deteriorated quickly: four straight wins to open the league phase were followed by three consecutive defeats that left Inter in 10th place, one point shy of automatic passage to the round of 16 and forced into a playoff they ultimately could not survive.

Midfielder Nicolò Barella, visibly dejected, praised the victors. “Bodø won both the matches, so they deserved to go through. They didn’t put us in great difficulty today … the most difficult thing was to score and we couldn’t. Of course, there is disappointment because our desire is to fight on all fronts.”

Inter now turn their attention to Serie A, where they sit 10 points clear and remain on course for a domestic title. Yet the humiliation against a club from Norway’s far north will linger, a stark reminder that in modern European football pedigree guarantees nothing without ruthlessness in front of goal.

Chivu, still winless in knockout-phase European ties as a manager, offered a sober conclusion: “You know the level is high in the Champions League and if you can’t be clinical and aware in front of goal, then opponents will punish you.”