The ‘Derby d’Italia’ has the distinction of being one of the biggest in the world without technically being one.

Derbies are, as most know, due to geographical location and relative proximity to one another. Think Celtic vs Rangers in Glasgow; Boca Juniors vs River Plate in Buenos Aires; Liverpool vs Everton; Roma vs Lazio and Inter vs Milan.

The Derby d’Italia between Juventus and Inter, however, is based entirely on prestige. The game between Italy’s two biggest and most successful sides was christened so by the mythical sports journalist Gianni Brera in the late 1960s.

The Derby d’Italia is, in that sense, the Italian equivalent of Spain’s El Clasico. And just like El Clasico, the Derby d’Italia has been riddled with controversy down the years. 

Such issues will be spared for another article, however. This one will stay with events on the field.

The date was December 5, 2009, and Jose Mourinho’s Inter seemed to be well on their way to another league title.

Mourinho was in his second season at the club and the Nerazzurri were seven points clear of city cousin’s Milan. Juventus were still in the throes of their struggling comeback post-Calciopoli, but under Ciro Ferrara they sat third in the table. 

A 2-0 away defeat by Cagliari the previous week was hardly ideal preparation for a home game against the reigning champions.

With the old Stadio Delle Alpi being rebuilt into what would later become known as the Allianz Stadium, Juve were temporarily calling Torino’s Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino home.

The Bianconeri would play in the stadium, more centrally located in the city, for five years, and this victory against Inter represented one of the high points of the era.

Owing to Calciopoli and the subsequent bad feeling between the two clubs, the Derby d’Italia in this era was often a powder keg waiting to explode. 

At any given moment a bad tackle usually set both teams off, and this game on a chilly Saturday night in Turin was no different.

With Juve having the likes of Giorgio Chiellini, Felipe Melo, Martin Caceres and Fabio Cannavaro, while Inter lining out with the likes of Walter Samuel, Sulley Muntari and Christian Chivu, all men who thrive off the nastier side of the game, the tackles were sure to fly in.

And that’s how it started.

Chiellini had given Juve the lead via a goal he knew little about. Diego’s in-swinging cross from a free kick went in via two deflections, one from Alessandro Del Piero and the other from Chiellini, and the ball trickled past Julio Cesar into the net, with the Brazilian shot stopper desperately lunging to push the ball out.

Six minutes later Inter equalised through Samuel Eto’o. Dejan Stankovic’s cross down the left-hand side was met by the Cameroonian, who guided the ball past Gigi Buffon with all the brilliance of an expert craftsman. 

Eto’o had just moved to Serie A after he was involved as a makeweight in the Zlatan Ibrahimovic transfer that saw the Swede move to Barcelona. 

The €56m plus Eto’o deal was arguably the best Massimo Moratti ever conducted, and while the Cameroonian didn’t bring the same amount of goals in his first season that he would in the second, his willingness to play wherever Mourinho wanted him to would be a major reason in Inter winning the Treble.

It was his seventh goal of the season, and it seemed Inter would now go for the jugular, with parity restored. But they didn’t.

Del Piero, an experienced campaigner in the fixture at this stage of his career, and Eto’o had slight chances at goal. Yet in between those were clashes involving Chiellini and Samuel, with neither of the grizzled defenders giving an inch.

Some 58 minutes into the game Juve’s second arrived, and with so much experience on the pitch, it was one of the youngest players on the pitch to produce a moment of individual brilliance.

Claudio Marchiso, only 23, had possession of the ball down the left-hand channel. The Italian then cut inside, shifting on to his right before switching the ball to Momo Sissoko in the middle of the pitch.

An often forgotten Juve figure in the middle of the barren period of the late 2000s, the midfielder strode forward.

Sissoko wasn’t a player known to bag many goals. In fact, he only registered 15 in 300-odd games in a career that lasted 16 years.

The Mali international fired off a low shot from 25 yards out. The ball fizzed across the damp surface and was going into the bottom corner, only for Julio Cesar to pull off a decent save.

Yet the Brazilian keeper could only get one hand to the ball and didn’t push it away far enough.

Marchisio had kept running while Sissoko strode forward, his presence going undetected by Samuel on the left-hand side of the penalty box. It wouldn’t be for long. 

The Little Prince, as Juventus fans had christened him, reached the loose ball first, but had little time to breathe as Samuel, who’d spun around to see the Italy midfielder in front of him with the ball, lunged in classic Samuel fashion.

Marchisio then produced a deft touch with his left instep, skipping past the Argentine. Yet another grizzled defender in the shape of Lucio wasn’t far away, therefore forcing the Juventus star to reshuffle his feet in a flash.

He pushed the ball from his right foot back to left as Julio Cesar came diving out. In a glorious bit of improvisation and calmness, Marchisio lifted the ball over the Brazilian and into the net.

All of this while being on the verge of falling over made the goal even more impressive. The whole sequence was three touches. Three touches of brilliance. 

Juve were now 2-1 up, and had the Stadio Olimpico di Torino had a roof, it would’ve blown off. The noise was deafening.

Marchisio was in his second full season as a Juve regular, having been sent on loan to Empoli in the 2007-08 campaign and excelling. In what was a bleak era for Juve, he represented a somewhat brighter future.

A technically-gifted midfielder who had the lungs to run up and down the pitch and pick out a pass, Marchisio has become somewhat underrated in the pantheon of Italian midfielders in the last 15 years. 

He was voted Juventus’ fans Player of the Year for 2009 and was viewed at the time as the cornerstone of the Juve midfield for the next decade.

While other midfielders sparkled more over the next few years, especially Andrea Pirlo, Arturo Vidal and Paul Pogba, Marchisio was the constant, the understated one in the middle who could do it all. A jack of all trades.

Unfortunately for him, he had to wait another two-and-a-half years to win any silverware with the team he grew up in. 

Following the victory against Inter, which included an unsurprising red card for Felipe Melo after he elbowed Mario Balotelli, Juve would lose five of the next six games, including embarrassing defeats to the likes of Bari, Catania and Chievo.

Ferrara, who’d been handed the job the previous summer with the mandate of injecting some youth into The Old Lady and modern football, struggled with the size of the job.

He was replaced by Alberto Zaccheroni, who lasted until the end of the season but didn’t do much better. 

Juve floundered under the weight of their own history, until Antonio Conte returned to the club in the summer of 2011 to restore the balance. Marchisio was 26 by then and and considered a fulcrum in the heart of midfield. He would score nine goals in Conte’s first season, the best of his career.

And against Inter in December 2009, he gave a taster of what he would do in the future. The high watermark of Ferrara’s disastrous six-month sint.