Tresoldi's Hat Trick Stuns San Siro as Club Brugge Beat Inter 4-3 and Leave the Champions on Zero Points

San Siro has hosted a century of famous European nights, and on Tuesday it hosted one its own fans will want to forget. Club Brugge beat Inter 4-3 in the Champions League league phase, powered by a hat trick from Nicolò Tresoldi, and according to Reuters, the result leaves the defending Serie A champions with zero points from two matches and a campaign already sliding toward crisis.

Tresoldi, a 22-year-old forward, scored Brugge's first three goals — the first Brugge player ever to score a Champions League hat trick, per FotMob — and tormented an Inter defence that never found an answer for his movement. Lautaro Martínez scored twice for the hosts, and Ange-Yoan Bonny added a late third deep in stoppage time, but every Inter revival was answered, and Romeo Vermant's 87th-minute goal ultimately stood as the winner's cushion.

A Penalty, an Equaliser, Then the Floor Gave Way

The night began with a warning Inter did not heed. Tresoldi had already struck the post before he opened the scoring from the penalty spot on the half hour, after Hakan Calhanoglu fouled the lively Carlos Forbs, Reuters reported. Inter responded like champions for exactly one move: Marcus Thuram and Federico Dimarco combined down the left, and Martínez turned home the equaliser before halftime, holding off his marker to finish.

What followed after the break was a defensive collapse. A misunderstanding between goalkeeper Josep Martinez and his defence let Forbs steal in and nudge the ball through the keeper's legs, leaving Tresoldi to tap into an empty net and restore Brugge's lead just after the hour, according to Reuters. Eleven minutes later Tresoldi completed his hat trick, tucking home a rebound in the 74th minute after Forbs had cut inside and forced a save. FotMob noted that at 22 years and 54 days, Tresoldi became the youngest German to score a Champions League hat trick — on Italian soil, against the Italian champions.

Inter's Late Surge Came Up One Goal Short

To their credit, Inter refused to fold. Martínez's second goal, finished from close range in the 81st minute, cut the deficit to 3-2 and turned San Siro loud again. But Brugge — composed, clinical, utterly unafraid — restored the two-goal margin six minutes later, Vermant lifting a delicate finish over the goalkeeper to make it 4-2. Bonny's strike in the third minute of added time, cutting inside and finding the top corner per FotMob, made it 4-3 and set up a frantic finish that arrived about ten minutes too late.

The underlying numbers underline how wild the game was: FotMob recorded 30 Inter shots and an expected-goals total of 3.93, against 4.26 for Brugge from 18 attempts. This was not a smash-and-grab. Brugge created the better chances, scored four times in one of Europe's great stadiums, and per FotMob, have now won three of their last four Champions League meetings with Italian sides — becoming the first Belgian club ever to beat Inter in this competition.

Zero Points, and the Pressure Arrives Early

The context is brutal. Inter lost their league-phase opener 2-1 away to Real Madrid, according to Reuters and the AFP match reporting carried across outlets, and have now lost four consecutive matches in Europe's top competition for the first time. For the reigning Serie A champions, two games without a point transforms every remaining league-phase fixture into something close to a must-win, starting with their next home assignment. The margin for error in the new format is generous for most teams — it is no longer generous for Inter.

Tuesday was, more broadly, a night of glorious excess across the competition: nine matches produced 32 goals, Reuters reported in its roundup, with Bayern Munich held 3-3 at Viking Stavanger and Barcelona rallying in Istanbul. Only three teams — Sporting, Arsenal and Barcelona — hold perfect records after two matchdays. Brugge, who lost their opener at home to Aston Villa, now sit on three points with a signature away win that will echo around Belgium; UEFA.com lists Tresoldi among the early leaders of the competition's scoring charts, with four goals already this campaign.

For Inter, the autopsy will focus on the defence: four goals conceded at home, a goalkeeping error at the game's turning point, and a back line repeatedly exposed by Forbs's running and Tresoldi's timing. Champions League campaigns have recovered from worse starts, but rarely from starts that look like this — open, chaotic and beaten at home by the hungrier team. San Siro expected a statement. It got one. It was just written in Flemish.

For Brugge, the night also rewrites what this team believes about itself. Belgian clubs are so often cast as the league phase's plucky guests — organised, respected, and ultimately sent home by the aristocracy. This was none of that. Brugge pressed Inter in their own stadium, attacked the champions' penalty area in numbers, and when the game demanded a fourth goal to survive the late surge, they went and scored it rather than retreating into a defensive shell. That mentality, as much as Tresoldi's finishing, is what travels through a long European campaign.

Read the rest of Matchday 2 in our early wrap and the late wrap, and follow the league phase on the soccer hub and the Sports front.