Italian footballers spoke vacuously amongst themselves (5,2)

I believe the answer is:

inter se

'amongst themselves' is the definition.
(Latin term)

'italian footballers spoke vacuously' is the wordplay.
'italian footballers' becomes 'inter' (inter milan).
'vacuously' means to remove the middle letters.
'spoke' with its centre removed is 'se'.
'inter'+'se'='INTER SE'

(Another definition for inter se that I've seen is " How classicists may write among themselves".)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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