Inter Milan Strike Late To Beat Urawa Reds At Club World Cup

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Inter Milan defeated Urawa Red Diamonds 2-1 on Saturday to knock the Japanese team out of the Club World Cup, and Valentin Carboni scored the winning goal in stoppage time.

Urawa Reds, who were backed by a noisy crowd of their supporters at Seattle’s Lumen Field, scored Ryoma Watanabe’s opening goal.

However, with just 12 minutes left, Lautaro Martinez, Inter’s captain, pulled the equalizer in their 1-1 draw with Monterrey of Mexico in their opening game.

In the 92nd minute, Carboni, an Argentine 20-year-old player who had not played for Inter for more than two years, made his debut to give the Italians the victory.

After Inter were forced to work for the victory, Martinez told the broadcaster DAZN, “We need to play with our hearts, and we need to do that as a team we need to play with more pride, be humble, and know how to suffer.”

The FIFA Club World Cup 2025 Group E football match between Inter Milan from Italy and the Japanese Urawa Red Diamonds takes place on June 21, 2025 at the Seattle Lumen Field stadium in Albania. #21 Kristjan Asllani (R) scores but fails to score. (Photo by Pablo PORCIUNCULA/AFP)

The outcome puts Cristian Chivu’s team in good shape to advance to the last 16, while Urawa Reds are eliminated after their second defeat in as many games.

After this game, our emotions are so bad. Since we are no longer competing in the final game, they can only compete in the final game to earn our one-and-only victory, according to their Polish coach Maciej Skorza.

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Urawa Reds, the Asian Champions League winners of 2023, were attempting to recover from a 3-1 defeat at River Plate in their opening game when they won 11th.

Takuro Kaneko scored with a strong run down the right before Watanabe first swept his low cross home.

It appeared as though Inter’s UEFA Champions League runners-up might suffer a shock defeat when Henrikh Mkhitaryan missed the target from a good position in the second half after Martinez hit the crossbar shortly after.

However, they did get the equalizer in the 78th minute when Martinez skillfully turned in a left-angled Nicolo Barella corner and headed home with an overhead kick as he fell backward.

Carboni, who had been out of action since early October because of a serious knee injury while playing on loan at Marseille, was then given the opportunity.