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Inter Milan Matchwinner Emotional Dedication To Late Grandmother After 2-1 Match Winner Over Bayern Munich: 'She Had A Hand In That Goal'

Inter Milan Matchwinner Emotional Dedication To Late Grandmother After 2-1 Match Winner Over Bayern Munich: 'She Had A Hand In That Goal'

Yahoo09-04-2025

Inter Milan Matchwinner Emotional Dedication To Late Grandmother After 2-1 Match Winner Over Bayern Munich: 'She Had A Hand In That Goal'
Inter Milan Matchwinner Emotional Dedication To Late Grandmother After 2-1 Match Winner Over Bayern Munich: 'She Had A Hand In That Goal'
Davide Frattesi soaked up the limelight as Inter Milan's hero in tonight's Champions League triumph at Bayern Munich.
Speaking to Sky Sport Italia via FCInterNews, the 25-year-old dedicated his match-winning goal to his late grandmother.
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Davide Frattesi lost his grandma shortly before the game.
However, instead of letting emotions overwhelm him, the ex-Sassuolo star used it as an added motive.
Indeed, he came off the bench to score an all-important winner in Inter's 2-1 victory at the Allianz Stadium.
Frattesi latched onto the low cross from Carlos Augusto to cancel out Thomas Muller's 85th-minute equalizer at the death.
As a result, Simone Inzaghi's men have set one foot in the semi-finals.
Moreover, Frattesi's last-gasp winner was the only fitting way to pay tribute to his deceased grandmother.
Davide Frattesi Pays Tribute to His Grandmother After Inter Milan Win vs Bayern Munich
MUNICH, GERMANY – APRIL 08: Davide Frattesi of FC Internazionale celebrates scoring his team's second goal during the UEFA Champions League 2024/25 Quarter Final First Leg match between FC Bayern München and FC Internazionale Milano at Fussball Arena Muenchen on April 08, 2025 in Munich, Germany. (Photo by)
Frattesi's 88th-minute winner condemned Vincent Kompany's side to their first home loss in Europe in four years.
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Therefore, emotions were overwhelming.
'In my life, I've always believed my greatest strength was my mentality,' Frattesi claimed.
'I always thought nothing and no one could shake me. But when I was faced with this, I felt lost.
'At one point, I couldn't keep going as usual because I was so attached to my grandmother.
'It was tough, I wasn't used to seeing her like that.
'I think tonight she had a hand in it, for sure she shouted something down to me from above.'
Then, Frattesi addressed the recent criticism.
'Sometimes we get criticized heavily, maybe rightly so – like after the draw in Parma, where we should've won.
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'But this part of the season is tough. Playing on three fronts and staying competitive on all of them isn't easy.
'Tonight, we got a great result, but maintaining consistency isn't simple.
'We're facing big challenges and fighting for huge goals – we have to give everything we've got.'
Finally, he admitted Inter cannot let this win tuck them into a false sense of security.
'It'll definitely be a different kind of game,' he added.
'They'll push more, so we need to be smart when winning the ball back and clean in transition.
'It won't be easy because they're a strong team, but we'll need to be sharp and especially clinical.'

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Auckland City FC: ‘We are the working-class team at the FIFA Club World Cup'

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Advertisement In partnership with local government and charitable foundations, the club are also raising funding for a new NZ$6million (£2.7m; $3.6m) all-weather surface and other facilities that will serve local children from a multi-cultural region facing socio-economic challenges. For Kilkolly and the other City players, this is the legacy aspect of their Club World Cup participation. 'That's 100 per cent it — we're looking at what we're leaving behind and Auckland football is going to be in a better position than when we started,' he says. 'You're not going to see the return on some of these things in the next 10 or 20 years, but it's about us as a side doing our part in history. There's going to be an all-weather pitch built at Mount Roskill and kids will be able to play football through the winter. Before you know it, there might be kids from Mount Roskill making the first team at Auckland City. 'There is a greater good here. We are the working-class team at this Club World Cup, showing that you can come from any sort of area in life.' One of Kilkolly's team-mates, Michael den Heijer, fell into football as a young boy. During a childhood that he says 'had some interesting times', the sport provided sanctuary. 'My family life was unsettled,' Den Heijer says. 'My parents separated when I was 12 and football was just this safe space where I could get away from some of the issues at home.' A ball-playing defender or midfielder, Den Heijer's journey through the sport has taken him a long way. When The Athletic speaks to him, the team have arrived in the U.S. and settled into their hotel in Philadelphia, where they were to play a tournament warm-up friendly against the B team of local MLS side Philadelphia Union. Den Heijer is 29. He was a New Zealand youth international and was in the squad for the 2013 Under-17 World Cup in Sweden. In his later teens, he successfully trialled with Kashiwa Reysol in Japan, but struggled to adapt to the culture and language. He returned home, where routes into professional football are almost non-existent. Advertisement 'It must be one of the hardest careers to pick,' he says. 'In New Zealand, it must be harder than becoming a heart surgeon.' He is joking, of course, but footballing's heartlands were certainly a long way away. Still, Den Heijer made that leap of faith again, setting off for Europe this time, on the strength of vague promises from strangers. 'It's very hard to get an opportunity, but there was one on LinkedIn where some agent told me he had a club for me in Germany, near Berlin, and that I should come and take a look,' he says. 'I remember turning up to the hostel where they wanted me to sleep and there were people on the doorstep who looked like they had been taking heroin, and the room inside was a shambles. I called the agent and said, 'Sorry, this is not for me. Can you take me to the train station?'.' He travelled by rail to the Netherlands, where he would spend three years at second-tier NEC Nijmegen. But he would never make a senior appearance for them and was released in 2019. Spells with SV DFS in the sixth division of Dutch football and FC Kleve, a German fifth-tier side, followed. Den Heijer has psychological scars from that period. The lowest points were desolate and full of perilous financial insecurity, exacerbated eventually by the Covid-19 pandemic. 'You need ultimate self-belief to succeed in Europe and that's something I lacked,' he says. 'I didn't have a sporting mentor in my life and I was over there by myself. The toughest moments were hard. Being released by NEC, but then not having anywhere to go because I hadn't featured in many games… I had no money. They were really, really tough times.' Den Heijer took jobs where he could, including selling ornamental trees for a company run by one of DFS's sponsors. 'The town makes money from growing those trees and selling them all over Europe,' he explains. 'I would be standing in nursery fields, tying trees to bamboo fences and then putting them in trucks. I thought, 'What am I doing? This is not my dream'. But when I thought about coming back to New Zealand, that would be like admitting I'd failed.' The option was soon taken away. Lockdowns prevented Den Heijer and his partner, who he met during those days in the Netherlands, from travelling to New Zealand until March 2021. But when he did get back, it was a turning point. He signed initially with Auckland United, his current team's local rivals, before joining City in 2023. In the period since, he has helped win the domestic National League once, and OFC Champions League three times, and is now participating in his third Club World Cup. Advertisement Away from football, he is a program co-ordinator for a not-for-profit organisation called the Life Changer Foundation, which provides preventative health and well-being programmes to young people. Reading between the lines, it seems a way of providing youngsters with support that, years ago when Den Heijer's career was falling apart, he could have used himself. 'It just clicked,' he says. 'Now I have a team that I look after, delegating who goes into which school. I work about 30 hours a week. Some days I'm in the schools facilitating, and then I'll head off to training after school finishes, four nights a week. 'I'm leaving home at 7.30am, then straight to training afterwards. Some days, I do coaching as part of the Mount Roskill Foundation. 'Young people are not taught some of the skills that are needed to cope with life's challenges. When I think about some of the tougher moments I had as a teenager, they came about because my mom was in such a tough place after the separation from my dad.' Den Heijer seems in a good place now. He's good-humoured and quick to laugh. He admits to being 'nervous and excited' about the tournament, but it seems more like a reward for having survived the adversity that he has encountered, rather than a final challenge. His father, his stepmother and partner will all be in the States, travelling from game to game to support City. His mother will be back home in front of the TV, bursting with pride. 'She's always been a quiet watcher,' he adds. 'She'll just send me a text before the games: 'Run like the wind'.'

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