Defensive masterclass puts Mourinho’s men Inter the final

Going down to 10 men still didn’t stop Inter from putting on a defensive clinic to earn a priceless victory against Barcelona. They will play Bayern Munich, who eased past Lyon 4-o on aggregate.

Inter took a 3-1 lead into the second leg at the Nou Camp, thanks to a fine counter-attacking performance. For the second leg, Inter’s only thought was to defend, especially after Thiago Motta’s farcical red card. Already on a yellow, the Brazilian put up his hand behind him to help shield the ball from the onrushing Busquets. The Barça midfielder then ran lightly into the outstretched hand before collapsing to the floor and rolling around. The despicable act of gamesmanship was compounded as the camera cut to him having a quick peek to see if the referee was going to reach for the red card (below).

From this point, Inter were forced to abandon all attacking ambition and play with 10 men behind the ball, in effectively a training exercise. Their defence was outstanding for the whole match, keeping their organisation and discipline and maintaining a feverish work rate. The grizzled veterans Walter Samuel and Lúcio used every trick in the book to keep Barcelona’s much-vaunted forward line at bay. All the old tricks were employed in the true Italian style (despite having no Italian players in the side) with time-wasting, injury-feigning and grappling at corners a fixture from the opening whistle. In fact, one such skirmish left the disappointing Zlatan Ibrahimović with a massive rip in his shirt. The centre-backs were ably assisted by Maicon, Javier Zanetti and Esteban Cambiasso, who put in an almost perfect performance over the 2 legs.

While Barcelona might complain about the cynicism of the Inter players, it should also be noted that their players can be just as bad. Apart from the Busquets incident, they also have one of the most consistently annoying, diving, cheating players around in Dani Alves. Gerard Piqué eventually popped up to give Barça hope for the last 10 minutes, showing all the composure of a proper centre-forward (take note Ibra!). There was still time for a terrible Bojan miss and some questionable refereeing decisions, most notably the handball decision in stoppage-time that denied Barça their winner. So Inter enjoyed some good fortune over the tie, but when Barcelona’s own progression from this stage last season was gifted to them against Chelsea, it could be said that luck is an essential part of European success.

After the match, it was all about José Mourinho, who sprinted onto the pitch at the final whistle. El Tradutor did not hesitate to make a triumphant gesture in front of 100,000 baying Barcelona fans, and even Barça keeper Valdés couldn’t stop Mourinho from enjoying his victory. Still, the final offers another intriguing Mourinho subplot, as he faces up against his former mentor Louis van Gaal, now the Bayern manager.