Thursday night's match will be the 12th time Udinese and Inter have met in the Coppa Italia. The head-to-head record over 90 minutes stands at five Inter wins, five draws and two Udinese victories, including one of the Zebrette in their most recent Coppa Italia face-off – a 1-0 triumph in Udine in the round of 16 of the 2013/14 season.
The match will be played at San Siro, where Inter are unbeaten against Udinese in the Coppa Italia, but the second leg 2-2 draw in the 2001/02 season was enough to see Udinese reach the next round. Udinese games rarely end all-square in the Coppa Italia: in fact, the Zebrette have gone 22 matches without a draw, the last time being on 22 January 2015 against Napoli, a match which Udinese then lost on penalties. If Kosta Runjaic’s team does record a victory it would be Udinese’s third in a row in the Coppa Italia, a feat the club haven’t pulled off for a decade.
In the two Coppa Italia matches against Avellino and Salernitana Udinese had six different players get on the scoresheet: Keinan Davis, Brenner, Florian Thauvin, Jaka Bijol, Jurgen Ekkelenkamp and Lorenzo Lucca, the latter grabbing two goals. The Italian striker has also already scored against Inter this season, netting in the 3-2 league defeat on 28 September, the only goal he has scored with his feet in this Serie A season. Christian Kabasele also scored on that occasion, while Jaka Bijol claimed his first goal in Italy against Inter on 18 September 2022.
Florian Thauvin has played three Coppa Italia matches for Udinese, contributing to six goals. In the last match he played in, against Avellino on 9 August, he recorded one goal and two assists. This season, Jesper Karlstrom and Jordan Zemura are also standing out for the Friulians: the former is second in Serie A among midfielders for balls recovered (21), while the latter is third among wingers for successful dribbles (19).
Kosta Runjaic and Simone Inzaghi have only met once before, in a 3-2 victory for the Nerazzurri early in the season at Bluenergy Stadium. There will be three players facing their former clubs today: Piotr Zielinski, who was at Udinese from 2011 to 2014, Daniele Padelli, who was at Inter from 2017 to 2021 and Alexis Sanchez, who was at Inter from 2019 to 2022 and in 2023/24. The Chilean could finally make his second Udinese debut in Thursday’s match.