Lautaro the talisman, goals from corners: all of the stats from Inter 3 - 1 bologna

What a night to kick off 2026. Inter’s 3–1 win over Bologna on Serie A Matchday 18 thrilled with its play, quality, focus and the sheer number of chances created. It was a dominant performance, which has been confirmed by the statistics as well. However, they only tell part of the story of Inter’s 13th league victory (from 17 matches played, with no draws, a first in the club’s history), a win that secured our spot on top of the table.

From kick-off, the Nerazzurri put Vincenzo Italiano’s side under huge pressure. Something similar had already happened in Riyadh, in the unlucky Supercoppa Italiana semi-final, but this time Inter made it count, despite coming up against an outstanding Ravaglia, who repeatedly produced superb saves to deny what looked like certain goals.

The numbers say it all: the match ended with 2.83 Expected Goals, 19 shots in total, 10 of which were on target, many of them denied by Ravaglia. The most striking figure was that there were nine big chances, a clear indicator of Inter’s constant and very high level of threat. Inter controlled the entire match (58% possession), battled as they always do, hunted the ball back, and put together effective, at times spectacular passages of play, like the move that led to Zieliński’s goal.

LAUTARO THE TALISMAN

Devastating, and even though the scoresheet showed just one goal, Lautaro Martínez put on a genuine show at San Siro. The Inter captain provided the assist for Zieliński’s opening goal, then made it 2–0 with a magnificent header. Ravaglia denied him several times, in addition to a sensational effort that hit the crossbar. Overall, the number 10 ended the match with six shots, 1.31 expected goals, and four big chances created.

EL TORO'S NUMBERS

Tenth league goal (his 14th of the season), further consolidating his status as Serie A’s leading scorer. El Toro continued his good form, finding the net for the fifth consecutive Serie A match: six goals in his last five league appearances, a run he had already achieved between December 2023 and January 2024.

By reaching 10 goals in this league season as well, Lautaro achieved another milestone: with Inter, only Alessandro Altobelli (eight times) and Giuseppe Meazza and Benito Lorenzi (nine each) have recorded more separate league campaigns with at least 10 goals.

The Nerazzurri's captain has now reached 167 goals for Inter: Roberto Boninsegna, on 171, is just four goals ahead, on the podium of Inter’s all-time top scorers. Moreover, with 125 Serie A goals, Lautaro has drawn level with Gonzalo Higuaín as the fourth-highest Argentine goalscorer in the history of the Italian league.

And there’s more: the striker is the first Inter player to score at least one goal in five consecutive home matches against the same opponent in Serie A in the three point per win era, as well as the first player overall to reach this milestone in the top flight since Paulo Dybala (six against Milan between 2015 and 2019). Since his Serie A debut season (2018/19), Lautaro is also the player who has recorded the most matches with at least one goal and one assist in the competition (16).

OTHER STATS FROM THE MATCH

Against Bologna, Inter scored twice from corner kicks: Lautaro found the net from Çalhanoğlu’s delivery, while Thuram struck from Dimarco’s corner. This takes Inter to nine goals scored from corners in the league this season; only Arsenal (11) and Tottenham (10) have done better in terms of goals coming from corners. The match was opened by Piotr Zieliński, however, with a superb left-footed strike from outside the box. Since the season of his first Serie A goal (2015/16), the Polish midfielder is one of only three midfielders currently in the league to have scored more than 15 goals from outside the area (16), fewer only than Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Ruslan Malinovskyi (19 each) over the same period. Zieliński is also one of just three midfielders to have scored more than one goal in each of the last 11 seasons (since 2015/16) across the five major European leagues, alongside Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Kevin De Bruyne.