Real Madrid vs Inter Milan: predicted lineups, where to watch and kick-off time

Real Madrid vs Inter Milan is played on Tuesday 8 September at 21:00 at the Santiago Bernabéu, matchday one of the Champions League league phase.

There is no table to read and nothing on the board yet: the competition starts here. What there is, and what matters, is how the two arrive.

Where to watch

In Italy the game is shown on Sky Sport, with streaming on Sky Go and NOW. It is not on Prime Video: that platform carries one game per matchweek, and on matchday one it is not this one. Coverage differs by country, so check your local listing elsewhere.

The return that changes the evening

Real Madrid are managed by José Mourinho, and in the other dugout is Inter: the club he won everything with in 2010, and the one his name stays tied to.

He gets the fixture at the worst possible moment. On Friday night Real lost 1-0 at Betis, a first defeat of the season, with Mbappé missing a penalty in stoppage time. Until that evening it had been five straight wins, fourteen goals scored and two conceded.

Who is missing

Real Madrid are stripped through the middle: no Aurélien Tchouaméni, Eduardo Camavinga, Arda Güler or Bernardo Silva, plus Endrick, Ferland Mendy and Raúl Asencio. That is seven, and three of them started on Friday: the midfield has to be rebuilt almost entirely.

On the Inter side the news is heavier: alongside Djed Spence, they are without Federico Dimarco. It is the absence that changes the side most, because it removes the left flank through which much of the attacking play runs: in the predicted eleven the role goes to Carlos Augusto.

The predicted lineups

Real Madrid (4-1-2-3)
Thibaut Courtois in goal; Denzel Dumfries, Ibrahima Konaté, Dean Huijsen and Marc Cucurella at the back; Federico Valverde screening, with Brahim Díaz and Jude Bellingham ahead of him; Yan Diomande, Vinícius Júnior and Kylian Mbappé in attack.

Inter (3-5-2)
Josep Martínez in goal; Manuel Akanji, Yann Bisseck and Alessandro Bastoni in the three; Andy Diouf and Carlos Augusto wide, Nicolò Barella, Hakan Çalhanoğlu and Curtis Jones in the middle; Lautaro Martínez and Marcus Thuram up front.

Predicted lineups can change until an hour before kick-off. This page is updated right up to kick-off.

The head-to-head, and there is little of it

The two have met four times in total, all between November 2020 and December 2021, and Real Madrid won every one: 3-2 and 2-0 in Madrid, 2-0 and 1-0 in Milan. In the two home wins the Spanish side scored five and conceded two.

It is a short run, five years old, between two squads rebuilt from top to bottom: we keep it as context, not as an argument.

Our prediction

We say more than 1.5 goals in the game. It is the read that survives stripping away the occasion: the Bernabéu is where Real score most, and Inter have won three of their recent games by a single goal, which means they contribute to a scoreline without opening up.

On the result we do not commit, and this time the reason is technical rather than cautious: a Real without Tchouaméni and Camavinga against Inter's midfield three is the part of the pitch that decides this, and it is also the part we have least to read from.

The individual calls

We published two, and they are the same idea from two angles.

Kylian Mbappé — at least 2 shots on target. He starts wide in a front three that shoots a lot, and on European nights at the Bernabéu he is the one finishing most moves.

Vinícius Júnior — at least 1 shot on target. The lower threshold, because his game includes plenty of scrappy efforts, but it comes from the same read: that front three gets to the shot often.

Then we count it

When the Champions League round closes we publish the tally with nothing removed. The record of every settled call is in the results history.

Our analysis stays updated until kick-off on the Champions League page, and the individual calls are in the Player Predictions section.