Esposito excels for Inter and could banish the fear stalking Italy before playoff | Nicky Bandini

Is Francesco Pio Esposito immune to The Fear? Even as Inter threw away another two points on Sunday night, drawing 1-1 at Fiorentina and giving fresh encouragement to their rivals in a title race that was supposed to have been done and dusted by the end of February, their 20-year-old striker remained untouched by it.

He opened the scoring inside the first minute at the Stadio Artemio Franchi, rewarding Nicolò Barella’s cross with a firm header past David De Gea. When the ball reached him again in the dying seconds of injury time, Esposito once again met the occasion, keeping his feet as Luca Ranieri grabbed at him with both hands, and turning brilliantly to fire towards the bottom corner. This time, however, the goalkeeper was equal to it.

It had taken Fiorentina until the 77th minute to equalise, Cher Ndour forcing the ball home after Yann Sommer pushed an Albert Gudmundsson shot out into his path. But that spoke more to their own profligacy than Inter’s defending. The Viola ought to have been level before half-time, Gudmundsson glancing a header wide when unmarked and Moise Kean arriving a fraction too late to slide another cross into an open net.

Fiorentina’s turnaround this season has been remarkable. They did not win a league game until 21 December, collecting six points from their first 15 outings. Their sporting director Daniele Pradè quit in November, a forlorn attempt to protect the manager, Stefano Pioli, who got fired three days later anyway. And the man who took over in the dugout, Paolo Vanoli, still took more than a month after that to earn his first victory.

Since then, though, there has only been improvement. Fiorentina are out of the relegation zone now, and though the buffer is only two points it is hard to imagine them dropping back into it. They have won six of their last 10 games across all competitions and lost only two.

All this to say that drawing at Fiorentina is not a bad result. Under Vanoli, they look closer to the team who finished sixth last season than a true bottom feeder.

Fiorentina's Cher N'Dour (right) wheels away after scoring the equaliser for Fiorentina in the 1-1 draw with Inter. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images

But this setback did not occur in isolation for Inter. They have taken two points from their last three league games and are winless in four if you include their Coppa Italia semi-final first leg away to Como, which ended in a 0-0 draw. Realistically, this backslide began even earlier, with home-and-away defeats by Bodø/Glimt in the Champions League last month.

They remain in a strong position to win Serie A – six points clear at the top of the table with eight games remaining. But somehow it no longer feels that way. Their lead has more than halved since the end of February. And Milan, in second place, aren’t the only team chasing. The defending champions Napoli, one point further back, picked up a fourth consecutive win as they saw off Cagliari on Friday.

All of which still might not seem like a big drama, if this Inter team were not wearing the scars of last season, when they chased a quadruple all the way through to the spring, only to collapse with the finish line in sight.

When they lost to Bodø last month there was almost more acceptance than anger from Inter’s fanbase. Last year had shown that their team simply did not have the resources to try to win everything at once. Better to focus on the most achievable, and important objective of reclaiming the domestic title. But when you place all your eggs in one basket, you better be sure that you are holding the handles with a firm grip.

Christian Chivu was serving a touchline ban on Sunday, leaving his assistant Aleksandar Kolarov to fill in, but at a pre-game press conference the Inter manager bristled against a suggestion that his team were too focused on the chasing pack. “We haven’t thought at all about how many points we do or don’t have over anyone else,” he said. “We have a lead that could be a lot, or it could be a little. We just need to think about ourselves.”

It bears remembering that Inter were missing important players. Lautaro Martínez, the team captain and Serie A’s top scorer, has been out with a calf injury for the last month. Alessandro Bastoni, the most indispensable member of Inter’s back three, took a knock in the Milan derby and has missed two games since.

Still, depth was supposed to be their great advantage. Lautaro’s absence only meant Esposito, a sparkling young talent with eight previous goals this season, including a crucial one in the win over Juventus last month, had to start up front alongside Marcus Thuram. Without Bastoni, Inter could still field a starting back three of Manuel Akanji, Yann Bisseck and Carlos Augusto.

Denzel Dumfries’s recent return from ankle surgery was also supposed to provide a lift. Instead, his loss of footing had cost Inter a win over Atalanta. A harsh moment to judge him by, but certainly a significant one in prolonging Inter’s current wobble.

But Fiorentina had injuries of their own to contend with, and plenty of other issues besides. They were playing on a short turnaround after travelling to Poland to face Raków Częstochowa in the Europa Conference League on Thursday, while Inter’s players – out of the Champions League – got extra days of rest.

Kolarov suggested at full-time on Sunday that the international break might have arrived at a welcome moment for the Nerazzurri, granting space to take a breath and reset. Lautaro was not called up by Argentina, allowing him more time to recover. Bastoni has joined up with Italy for their World Cup qualifying playoff, though it remains to be seen whether he will be fit enough to feature.

Pio Esposito almost won the match for Inter after keeping his feet under great pressure only to be denied by a David de Gea save. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images

Pio Esposito has scored three goals in five appearances for Italy since being given his international debut by Gennaro Gattuso last September. He only started one of those games, and the expectation is that Kean and Mateo Retegui will lead the line to begin Thursday’s semi-final against Northern Ireland in Bergamo.

But having a striker immune to The Fear would be no bad thing for a nation who have failed to score once across three games as they were eliminated at this stage by Sweden and North Macedonia in the previous two World Cup cycles.

Hearing praise from Luca Toni during a post-game interview with for Dazn on Sunday, Esposito said that such words “counted double” coming from the former Italy striker. Reflecting on De Gea’s late save he added: “If it wouldn’t go in today, let’s hope it’s just waiting for Thursday.”