Diouf in Stoppage Time Saved Inter. We Were a Goal Short.

Six markets correct, one bonus scoreline off by a single goal, and one first-half call that the game simply refused to cooperate with. That is the honest ledger from Sunday's friendly in Karlsruhe, and we are not going to dress it up.

The First Half That Never Happened

The call that stung most was straightforward: a goal in the first 45 minutes. It made sense on paper.

Sheila

Friendly or not, Lautaro wants to show he's sharp. I expect Inter to test early. First half goal, yes.

Instead, both teams played out a cautious 0-0 to the break, with Inter clearly still finding their legs in their first pre-season outing of the summer. That is exactly the friction that friendly football introduces. It is not an excuse; it is just the truth about what these games are. Neither side created enough to beat the other in the first half, and the scoreline told you everything.

The half-time result market, where we called away or draw, landed correctly because we had the sense to include the draw. But the goal? Gone. The first-half blank was the single biggest swing in the night.

Civeja, Then Diouf Twice in Stoppage Time

What made the second half worth watching was the chaos it delivered. Tobias Civeja gave Karlsruhe the lead on 50 minutes, assisted by Broschinski, and for a spell the home side looked like they might actually hold on and make this a story.

Tom

KSC at home with a point to prove could nick one against a rotated Inter back four though. I'm not calling a clean sheet for anyone here.

Tom was right about that. KSC scored, Inter's rotation showed its seams, and the home crowd had their moment. The twist came deep in stoppage time. Assane Diouf scored in the 91st minute to level it, then scored again in the 94th, the second assisted by Alessandro Bastoni, to hand Inter a 2-1 win that felt almost snatched rather than earned.

For our exact score call of 1-3, that two-goal Inter margin never arrived in the way we expected. The final was 1-2, not 1-3. One goal short, two goals that arrived in the last four minutes of the match rather than across the second half as we had anticipated. The reading of the game was close. The scoreline was just one goal away.

What the Data Still Tells Us

Five of seven main markets landed, including goals in the second half, total goals in the 1-4 range, both teams scoring, and Inter's half-time position. The picture we built of this match, an Inter side with real quality leaking goals through rotation against a KSC team that cannot keep a clean sheet, was broadly right. The details caught us out.

The first-half call is the one to learn from. Pre-season first outings have a ceiling on early intensity that even the strongest data cannot fully capture. Lautaro and Barella in the lineup matters less when the game itself is operating at 60 percent tempo.

As Inter move into the season proper, the Diouf cameo and Bastoni assisting in stoppage time tells you the squad depth is real. Thuram will return. The attack has options. For KSC, Civeja's goal was a bright moment against elite opposition, and Broschinski's assist showed quality in transition. Neither side leaves this one looking bad. We just needed one more goal, and it never came.