Inter beat Parma 2-0 at home, and the shape of the victory was determined by a single structural fact: a goal in first-half stoppage time that forced Parma coach Carlos Cuesta GarcÃa into an early tactical reset, and a second goal midway through the second half that arrived precisely from the substitutes Chivu had introduced to close the match out.
Inter midfielder Piotr Zielinski threaded the assist that sent Inter forward Marcus Thuram through in the 45th minute, and Thuram converted to give the Nerazzurri the lead at the break. The timing mattered. Parma had held their shape for the better part of the first half, but conceding in added time denied Cuesta GarcÃa any opportunity to respond before the interval. His answer came immediately after the restart — but the structural damage was already done. Parma were now obliged to chase a match against a side that had scored sixteen goals across their last five fixtures.
The second goal came from a different Inter entirely. At the 67th minute, Inter coach Cristian Chivu made three simultaneous changes: Carlos Augusto for Alessandro Bastoni, Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Zielinski — who had picked up a yellow card three minutes earlier — and Lautaro MartÃnez for Thuram. Thirteen minutes later, Lautaro turned provider, and Mkhitaryan finished to double the lead. The sequence illustrated something about how Chivu has been managing this squad: the starting eleven opens the game, the bench closes it. The goal at the 80th minute was not a consequence of Parma pressing too high or Inter absorbing pressure; it was the product of a substitution wave that arrived with a specific purpose and executed it.
Mkhitaryan's goal is the one that sealed the result, and it is worth dwelling on the context of his involvement. Introduced as a replacement for a midfielder who had just been cautioned, the Armenian arrived into a match that was already tilted Inter's way and needed only to be managed. His finish, assisted by Lautaro, converted that management into arithmetic certainty. In a side that has collected thirteen points from their last five matches, the capacity to score through the second wave of substitutes — not just the starters — reflects a depth that less complete squads cannot replicate.
Parma's evening was not without effort, but their attacking returns were limited throughout. The visitors arrived at San Siro having won two of their last five matches and drawn two more, a run that suggested resilience rather than attacking ambition. Their front line — Strefezza and Pellegrino in the starting XI — found no way through an Inter defensive structure anchored by Bastoni and Akanji, and neither man was still on the pitch by the 75th minute. Cuesta GarcÃa's substitutions, including Pontus Almqvist and Oliver Sørensen entering at the 75th minute, could not manufacture the foothold the visitors needed. Parma finished the match without a goal, without a yellow card, and without a moment that genuinely threatened Yann Sommer's goal.
Inter's form across the last five matches — four wins, one draw, sixteen goals scored, seven conceded — places this result within a consistent pattern rather than as an isolated performance. The draw at Torino on April 26th remains the only blemish in that window, and even that came away from home. At San Siro, Chivu's side have been particularly difficult to contain: the 3-0 against Cagliari and the 5-2 against Roma in April established a home rhythm that this Parma side had no realistic means of disrupting. The last three matches tell a tighter story — two wins, one draw, seven goals scored, two conceded — but the direction of travel is the same.
A month from now, this match will be remembered not for its drama but for its efficiency: Inter needed one moment of quality before half-time and one well-timed substitution wave after it, and Parma never found an answer to either.