Inter Milan Tops AC Milan in Beckham’s First (And Last?) Derby

It was a rough day for David Beckham as he played in his first “Derby” game for AC Milan against crosstown rivals Inter Milan.  Beckham had to leave the contest early in the 2^nd half after suffering a leg injury, and his team went down in defeat by a 2-1 score with a very questionable goal factoring into the margin of defeat.

Inter Milan went out in front at the 29 minute mark on a goal by Adriano that would prove to be highly controversial.  Adriano took a crossing pass off his head and into the net for what would have been a spectacular goal.  However it was apparent to most everyone in attendance that the header had been redirected by Adriano’s arm in the process for what should have been an ‘inadvertent handball’.  Unfortunately for AC Milan, one of the few people *not* to see the contact with the arm was the referee so the goal stood.  Numerous replay angles confirmed the ‘inadvertent handball’ but with no instant replay review in Serie A, that did little but add insult to injury.

The controversial goal clearly deflated AC, who yielded another score late in the half to fall behind 2-0.  There was nothing questionable in the least about the second Inter Milan goal, a blistering low strike into the corner of the net by Dejan Stankovic set up by a Zlatan Ibrahimovic header off of a free kick.  The highlight reel score left AC Milan down by a pair of goals heading into the locker room for halftime.

AC Milan’s fortunes took another turn for the worse shortly after halftime when David Beckham limped off with an apparent leg injury.  While the eventual news was optimistic—Becks is already doing much better and won’t even miss practice time this week—it was yet another setback for an AC Milan side that never really recovered from the dubious opening goal.  Things finally started to pick up for AC Milan at the 71 minute mark, when Alex Pato’s sidefoot goal cut the margin in half.  That was as close as they were able to get, however, with Inter Milan padding their Serie A lead with a 2-1 victory.

After the game, Beckham continued to field questions about his contractual situation with the MLS LA Galaxy:

"I know it will be difficult to go back after everything that's happened. I've said I want to stay at Milan and I haven't changed my mind, but it's out of my hands."

AC Milan team representatives are scheduled to fly to Los Angeles early in the week for further negotiations with the Galaxy.  The Galaxy appear intent to hold up Milan for as much money possible—they’ve already turned down a 6 million Euro ($7.7 million US) and are after a report 10 million Euro ($12.89 million US) transfer fee for Beckham.