Real Sociedad coach Imanol Alguacil remains ‘proud of our performance against one of the best teams in the Champions League,’ but they ran out of steam with Inter.
The hosts had taken an early lead in San Sebastian thanks to a very high press forcing Alessandro Bastoni into an error, allowing Brais Mendez to score.
They also kept the initiative, rattled the woodwork and forced a tough save out of Yann Sommer, but Inter equalised with their first shot on target from Lautaro Martinez.
“I said yesterday that if we had lost, we had to leave the field with this mentality,” Alguacil said in his press conference.
“This was an incredibly evening, I hope the fans and the club are happy with the performance. We are, even if we didn’t win in the end.
“Drawing against a team like Inter is an incredible result for us. We played Real Madrid on Sunday and returned home at 4am. We held on while we could, but by the last 10 minutes we were drained.”
Considering the lack of chances created by the Nerazzurri until that equaliser, Real Sociedad will see this as two points dropped.
“We had done everything we needed to in order to win the game, but when you create scoring opportunities, you’ve got to put them into the net.”
It is a recurring theme for Real Sociedad, as they had also taken the lead against Real Madrid only to fall away in the final stages and lose 2-1.
“Evidently this is a problem, but I remain happy with my players and want to thank the fans too. We are proud. It hurts, as we did everything to win the game and deserved to be 3-0 up until the 80th minute, despite the fact we were up against an Inter side that last season reached the Champions League Final and three days ago put five goals past Milan.
“Our performance against one of the best teams in the Champions League was excellent.”
Elsewhere in the Champions League group, RB Salzburg won 2-0 away to Benfica, although the Portuguese side were down to 10 men for almost 80 minutes.