Jose Mourinho will face Bayern Munich in the 2010 Champions League final after beating Lionel Messi 3-2 on aggregate. Well, according to the papers that’s what happened anyway. Looking at the media coverage surrounding this game you’d think Inter and Barcelona were a team of misfits and no-hopers before these two came along.
Bayern secured their place in the final with an impressive 3-0 win away at French giants Lyon. The Germans entered the second leg with a one goal advantage after Arjen Robben’s deflected effort gave them a 1-0 win at the Allianz Arena last Wednesday.
Lyon were considered slight favourites to advance to their first Champions League final given their home advantage in the second leg, but they looked dead and buried once Ivica Olic opened the scoring for Bayern in the first-half. The home side were reduced to ten men after two harsh bookings in quick succession saw centre-half and captain Cris dismissed. The Brazilian was initially booked for what looked like an excellent challenge on the half-way line, and then given his marching orders after mockingly applauding the referee’s decision. The tie pretty much ended right there.
Two more goals from Croatia striker Olic emphasised Bayern’s superiority over the two legs as Louis Van Gaal’s team progressed to the final with a 4-0 aggregate win.
The second semi-final was also marred by a controversial sending off, though it’s fair to say that Thiago Motta’s dismissal for ‘violent conduct’ had a far greater impact on the game’s outcome than Cris’ did a night earlier.
It was already clear that Mourinho had set up Inter to frustrate Barcelona from his initial team selection, with Romanian defender Christian Chivu, who looks like a simpleton in his Peter Cech helmet, replacing forward Goran Pandev moments before kick-off. It remains uncertain whether Pandev, who missed Inter’s weekend fixture through injury, was genuinely set to play before breaking down in the warm-up, or if it was an intentional attempt by Mourinho to influence Pep Guardiola’s tactics.
The match was playing out as expected, with Inter prepared to defend the 3-1 advantage they held from the first leg, when Thiago Motta was inexplicably sent off for what was nothing more than obstruction. The former Barcelona midfielder held out his arm to shield the ball from the utterly garbage Sergi Busquets, only for the odd-looking Spaniard to collapse to the ground clutching his face.
Busquets writhed around like a tit and Motta was shown a red card. It looked as if the furious Motta, who looks a bit of a loose cannon anyway, was about to lash out at Busquets for his antics, but quite surprisingly the Brazilian settled for grabbing him by the back of the neck and shouting abuse down his ear.
If there was any justice UEFA would rescind Motta’s sending off and hand Busquets a three game suspension for shaming the sport infront of a global audience. Unfortunately such a thing is very unlikely.
As can sometimes be the case in these situations, Inter were galvanised by being unfairly reduced to ten men and proceeded to defend as resolutely as ever. Barcelona continued to dominate possession, as you’d expect, but with Inter’s world-class defence and goalkeeper in top form the Catalans were largely restricted to shifting the ball sideways in the hope of either Xavi picking out an impossible pass or Messi dribbling through the entire Inter team.
Barcelona look like the football equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters when teams like Arsenal are stupid enough to set up to play a wide open game and try to match Barca’s brand of possession football with inferior players. But when someone like Mourinho shows up with a gang of top-draw arl arses and no any interest in how his tactics will be perceived in the press it can be a different story.
Guardiola can be his own worst enemy at times, and his apparent obsession with making a point to Real Madrid by winning trophies with as many youth academy products in his side as possible looked flawed last night. Thierry Henry should have started. The France striker is still a very high level player and remains vastly superior to youngsters like Bojan Krkic and Jeffren, who both got on the pitch ahead of him, as well as the woeful Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Henry has the turn of pace and direct style that Barca were sorely lacking last night, and it was shocking to see Guardiola overlook him when his team were in desperate need of goals.
I’ll be very surprised if the Barca fans and board don’t take steps towards forcing Ibrahimovic out in the summer, especially if Real pip them to the title, though it’s hard to imagine anyone paying the enormous fee he’d probably command. Usually when Barcelona are faced with a team packing the centre with defenders it’s against jokers like Almeria or Sporting Gijon, whose players inevitably aren’t up to the task, but Inter’s quality defence showed just how badly Barca are missing the pace, work rate and intelligent movement of someone like Samuel Eto’o (who ran himself into the ground whilst playing in a variety of positions for Inter).
Barcelona did eventually force a break through late on when Gerard Pique, arguably the best centre-half in world football at the moment, sold Julio Cesar with a beautiful turn and calmly finished. The home side’s passage to a second consecutive final should have been secured when Bojan almost broke the net from close-range in the dying moments, but the referee gave an incredibly harsh free-kick against Yaya Toure after Lucio’s clearance appeared to strike the Ivorian’s arm before bouncing through to Bojan.
The way Inter defended in the wake of Busquets’ deplorable play-acting, as well the fact that Bojan missed an absolute sitter minutes earlier, makes it difficult to have too much sympathy for last season’s competition winners. It also spares us from a final that would have almost certain been as one-sided as last year’s.
Pazza Inter!
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