As the countdown to the derby on Sunday continues, Inters official website has revealed the total number of minutes the squad played during the international games this week; it is nearly half a day of football.

It's all part and parcel of what a big club has to deal with in this day and age, the prestige and danger of letting the players fly off to all parts of the world for high profile friendlies or vital qualifiers.

Striker Adriano was nine minutes short of completing a whole game in London, while fellow Brazilians Maicon and Julio Cesar played the whole 90 minutes against world champions, Italy.

Troubled youngster Mario Balotelli played a half for the Azzurrini against Sweden under-21s, despite upsetting the coach Pierluigi Casiraghi, and nearly scored too.

Elsewhere Ghana's Sulley Muntari and Javier Zanetti of Argentina represented their countries against Egypt and France respectively, both of them finishing out the match.

It remains to be seen, whether this will have any effect on the derby, especially as opponents, Milan are in a very similar position; the likes of Ronaldinho and Gianluca Zambrotta among others played earlier in the week too.