Inter Milan 4-3 Barcelona (7-6 agg): Italian side win thriller to reach second Champions League final in three years - as Lamine Yamal and Co crash out despite being seconds away from win
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- Barcelona had looked like they would win the tie before a stoppage time equaliser
- Davide Frattesi went on to score winner as three-time champions reached final
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This all made the first leg look relatively sane. It was madness. Glorious, unfiltered madness. Football from the asylum. A fever dream, at least for Inter. For Barcelona, come the end, a nightmare, and one that will haunt them for a long time yet.
The Spaniards lost this game and then won it and lost it again. Reverse that sequence for Simone Inzaghi’s Inter, whose extra-time hero was David Frattesi, the substitute who scored the 13th goal of a Champions League semi-final that will rank as the greatest ever. It was a rollercoaster from which no-one here wanted to get off.
After three hours the teams could not be parted, which was more than could be said for their respective backlines. They were ripped open at will. We were heading for penalties, and goodness knows what drama a shootout would have produced.
But then, in the 99th minute, Frattesi was the coolest man in the cauldron. He took a lay-off from Mehdi Taremi and paused for breath and thought. Now that was out of keeping with this symphony of chaos. And so, as time and everyone else stood still, he stroked delicately like a whisper into the bottom corner. What followed was not so tender.
The San Siro erupted. In truth, the lava had been flowing, twisting and turning for the best part of two hours. The first leg was box office, but this was better still, a blockbuster with no script. Trying to make sense of it is like trying to trap light with your bare hands - don’t bother, just enjoy the glow. Over two legs, it was sheer entertainment, like Netflix with a whistle and studs.
For six days since that 3-3 draw in Barcelona, Inter stressed and strategised as to a formula to beat Lamine Yamal. Do that, they calculated, and you beat Barcelona. They forced the genius back into the bottle, yes, but forgot about his team-mates. It’s all very well having a defence for the right hook, but when the heavyweight has a left jab, upper cut and footwork like this city’s pickpockets, you’re still going down.
And so, in the 88th minute, it looked like Raphinha had landed the knockout blow when he fired Barcelona into a 3-2 lead to complete a stunning comeback having trailed 2-0 at half-time.
But then, another twist, another goal. With less than 90 seconds to play, Inter defender Francesco Acerbi, thrown forward in desperation by Inzaghi, hooked into the roof of the net from close range to set up extra-time. Not that anyone was complaining about another 30 minutes of this. Then, finally, fatally and fabulously, it was Inter who stamped their ticket for Munich’s final, and boy did they deserve it.
If there was a prize for ‘best turned out’, to borrow horse-racing parlance, the San Siro would take the garland for its pre-match invasion of your senses. The Champions League anthem was relegated to a backing track - UEFA will not be happy - as a thunderous choir of 75,000 tenors became an opera of defiant pride.
There were shiny foils for all and a sea of black and blue flags, whipped, not waved. This cathedral was illuminated not by candles, but the flares that burned and perfumed the night air. All of a sudden, the San Siro’s concrete mass did not seem so concrete after all, the stone beneath your feet trembling in anticipation of what was to come. It knew.
I was at the Emirates Stadium last week when Arsenal attempted to intimidate PSG by dropping a giant flag of a cannon from the roof of one stand. They shot themselves in the foot. It was flimsy and unimaginative. This, by contrast, was an inspirational welcome for Inter’s warriors. But, more so, it felt like a warning for Barcelona. It was a declaration - no inch of turf would be conceded without a fight.
The visitors, meanwhile, were willing to give up several inches. Make that yards, in fact, and lots of them, each in behind their own defence. You could have laid one of Inter’s sprawling tifos in the area between Wojciech Szczesny and his centre-backs. Inter, rather, put the ball there, and repeatedly so.
It was to the surprise of no-one when they took the lead in the 22nd minute from a pass into said canyon. Federico Dimarco ambushed Dani Olmo out of possession and played a simple ball through Barcelona’s rearguard. Denzel Dumfries ran clear and unselfishly squared for Lautaro Martinez to turn into an empty net.
Did Barcelona change tact? No, and because of that neither did Inter. Just before half-time, Henrik Mkhitaryan threaded a pass through for Martinez. He was about to pull the trigger when Pau Cubarsi appeared to unload the striker’s gun with a sliding challenge. Play continued but VAR intervened. The recovering defender - that is Barcelona’s only type, it would seem - had taken man before ball. Hakan Calhanoglu converted the penalty for a deserved 2-0 lead entering half-time.
Barcelona’s best form of defence was not to defend at all. So that is what they did. They went on the attack and, come the hour, they were level. Not that Yamal was involved in either goal. The first, in the 54th minute, was a combination between their two full-backs, Gerard Martin crossing for Eric Garcia to volley into the bottom corner.
Now it was Inter’s turn to crumble, and Barcelona were happy to sweep up. They would have been on terms sooner had Yann Sommer not produced a stupendous save to deny Garcia a second goal from six yards. It will be lost amid all of the competing drama, but this was a stop to sit alongside Banks and the rest, flying across his goal to claw clear on the line. The relief did not last for long and Olmo headed in from Martin’s delivery 90 seconds later.
From cruising to drowning, Inter looked like a team in need of the whistle for full-time, and this with half an hour to play. What they soon heard was the whistle for a Barcelona penalty. Yamal was taken out by Mkhitaryan and, such is the speed with which the winger moves, his fall took him well inside the area. The foul, however, had occurred just outside. VAR overturned the award.
Then, more absurdity. Raphinha thought he had won it when slamming home two minutes from time. Not so. From 3-2 up to 4-3 down within 10 minutes. It was that sort of night. It was that sort of tie. Madness.
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