Sid Lowe was at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys tonight. Here’s his report. Thanks for reading this MBM.
Frenkie de Jong gives the Barca view to TNT. “It was a nice game to play … both teams really want to go to the final … both teams played their heart out … it’s half time, it’s still a draw, so let’s see next week … we knew it was going to be hard and difficult … it was a bad start from us … we knew we could make the comeback … we like to play attacking football, to dominate the game, score goals … of course we take some risks but we also get a lot of reward from it so I think we will keep playing like this … hopefully it will get us to the final … we feel we have the team that can do something special … we will go for it!”
Inter’s Denzel Dumfries, who has been named man of the match by Uefa, talks to TNT. “Crazy game in the end … both teams fought for the win … 3-3 is a deserved result … we are now looking forward to the next match … they are a very good team but we also have a lot of quality.”
He’s also told that he’s the first Dutch player to score and assist in a Champions League semi-final since Wesley Sneijder for eventual champions Inter in 2010. “That is a nice statistic … I’m very proud of the performance.”
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Inter midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan talks to TNT Sports. “It was a crazy game … a great game to watch but not to play … it was very hard … we did our best … we could have done even better … we were leading 2-0 with 20 minutes gone, but it was not that we thought we’d won the game already … Barca put loads of pressure on us … unfortunately we couldn’t keep the 3-2 … but this is football … I feel very gutted [that his second-half goal was disallowed] … maybe it was two or three centimetres … but this is football … my will was too much that I wanted to score … maybe I rushed … maybe I have to score in the second leg, let’s see! … Barcelona are very young and talented … we are going to do our best … it is not going to be easy because we have lost our captain and leader Lautaro Martínez … we will do our best to replace him and play without him.”
At the end of a game that’s put the 2010 semi-final meeting between these clubs into perspective, Lamine Yamal is awarded a shirt with the number 100 on it. He may only be 17 years old, but that’s already his century of appearances for Barcelona! And how he marked the occasion, twisting in from the right to score a solo stunner in the style of Archie Gemmill in power-up mode. That changed the momentum of a match which saw Inter fly out of the blocks, Marcus Thuram scoring the fastest semi-final goal in Champions League history, and Denzil Dumfries making it 0-2 with an overhead kick. After Yamal’s art piece, Ferran Torres and Dumfries went on to trade further goals, before Raphinha made it 3-3 with a lashing drive off both crossbar and the back of the unfortunate Yann Sommer. It could have finished 7-3, 3-7 or anything in between, and it’s all got to happen again in Milan in six days time. Can’t wait.
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FULL TIME: Barcelona 3-3 Inter
Counting down the days until San Siro next Tuesday already.
90 min +2: … a brief game of Head Tennis breaks out, but Inter are never in danger. Lopez eventually hoicks a poor cross from the left out for a goal kick.
90 min +1: Raphinha advances down the inside left and sends a speculative riser towards the top right. Sommer tips over spectacularly. No unlucky rebound off the bar and his back this time. But here comes a corner, from which …
90 min: There will be three additional minutes. Can’t we have 33? A third half?
89 min: It’s attack versus defence again. Yamal nearly finds Lopez with a clever chip down the middle, but Darmian’s telescopic leg hooks clear.
87 min: Torres advances on the Inter box and feeds Yamal to his right. The pass isn’t the best, and gets between Yamal’s feet, but the young genius somehow manages to dig it out and wedges an effort over Sommer and off the crossbar! He’d been quiet for a while. Too quiet.
85 min: Barca probe. Inter sit tight. Raphinha curls in from the left, hoping to find the head of Garcia. But Garcia clanks into Augusto, who goes down and wins a free kick. He doesn’t rush to get back up. Eventually he does.
83 min: Barcelona respond with a double swap of their own. Gavi and Christensen come on for Cubarsí and Pedri.
81 min: Inter make a double change with a view to taking the heat out of this wonderfully preposterous match. Thuram and the magnificent Dumfries make way for Zieliński and Darmian.
79 min: Yamal stands on the ball and spins away from Thuram with absurd ease. He nearly manages to release Raphinha down the left with an outside-of-boot diagonal pass, but it’s intercepted. Then Inter try to send Dumfries clear down the right, but Szczęsny races out of his box to blooter clear.
78 min: Yamal jigs in from the right and draws a foul from Mkhitaryan (who was only offside back there by the length of an uncut toenail). From the resulting free kick, Raphinha whistles a low curler towards the bottom left, but Sommer is behind it all the way. This game is gloriously nuts.
76 min: … and now Dumfries one-twos with Frattesi down the right and into the Barca box. He has the opportunity to shoot from ten yards but opts for the cutback. Wrong choice.
75 min: Inter have the ball in the net again! Dumfries is sent bombing down the right by Bisseck. He crosses low and long for Mkhitaryan, who races in from the left and slams home with his first touch! But he’s an inch offside.
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74 min: Until Inter scored their third, this match was attack versus defence. Now it’s an end-to-end basketball-infused affair. Now it’s Barca’s turn to attack, Lopez with the chance of releasing Raphinha into the box down the left, only to overcook the pass. Both teams fancy this.
72 min: Anything could happen here. Thuram blazes down the middle and for a second looks to have burst clear of Cubarsi, but the Barca defender does well to make up some ground and block the eventual shot with an extended leg.
71 min: Sixty seconds of hot administrative action, as Cubarsi is booked for a tug on Taremi, then Çalhanoğlu makes way for Frattesi.
70 min: Thuram carelessly gifts the ball to Lopez on the edge of the Inter box. Lopez dribbles a shot straight at Sommer, and Thuram breathes again. That was a decent chance.
68 min: Olmo is replaced by Fermín López.
67 min: One minute and 53 seconds passed between those two goals. This is one of the great semis. And there’s still a quarter of it left!
GOAL! Barcelona 3-3 Inter (Sommer og 65)
The corner’s pulled back. Yamal leaves it for Raphinha, who creams a first-time riser towards the top right. The ball caroms off the underside of the bar, then off the back of the keeper and in. What terrible luck for the keeper, who touched that onto the bar, but that was all Raphinha’s work. What a strike!
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64 min: Can Barca respond again? Well, Raphinha wins a corner down the left, and from that …
GOAL! Barcelona 2-3 Inter (Dumfries 63)
The corner’s hit long from the right. Dumfries rises above Olmo at the far stick and plants a header into the top left. Easy as that!
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62 min: This is better from Inter, as Thuram sends Dumfries into space down the right. Dumfries looks to hook into the middle, but his low cross is deflected out by Araújo. Inter claim a penalty, preposterously, as it hit the defender’s leg. But it doesn’t matter, because …
61 min: Inter are reduced to repeatedly hacking the ball upfield to nobody in particular. Cubarsi stupidly gives them an out by jumping all over the back of Thuram. From the resulting free kick, a long pass down the middle appears to be handled by Martínez. Barella claims a free kick but there’s nothing doing.
59 min: Çalhanoğlu receives the first caution of the evening, clattering through the back of Pedri, who had diddled him with a drop of the shoulder and was off into space.
58 min: Yamal exchanges cute passes with Olmo down the inside-right channel, then attempts to surprise Sommer with a cheeky toe-poke towards the bottom right from distance. Sommer reads his opponent well, and gathers.
56 min: … so Inter make a change, swapping Dimarco for Augusto, who now has the responsibility of keeping Yamal quiet. Good luck and godspeed, sir.
55 min: Yamal dribbles down the right. His cross is half cleared. Pedri sends a low pearler wide right. It’s all Barca.
54 min: Barca stay patient. Inter aren’t seeing much of the ball and they can’t get out of their final third.
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52 min: Barca pin Inter back. Yamal probes down the right. Martinez crosses low from the left. The visitors hack clear. Barca start again. This could be the pattern of the second half, right here.
50 min: Bisseck pulls a low cross back from the right. Dimarco, romping in from the left, sends a rising shot over the bar. It might have grazed the top of the frame, but the ball was going so fast, it’s hard to say for sure.
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49 min: Yamal has the opportunity to release Raphinha down the left, but overcooks the pass. Nobody’s perfect. Meanwhile Scott Blair writes: “I make no claim to be a well-informed observer of the fitba’ but I’m 61 and largely enjoy it as an entertaining diversion rather than following a particular team. (I like to see Scotland do well, if that provides perspective.) Accordingly I’ve seen a lot of goals over the years. I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen anyone do that before.” Scott’s teasing us about Archie Gemmill, isn’t he, readers.
47 min: A free kick for Inter, just left of centre, 40 yards out. Barella scoops a diagonal ball towards Thuram, who is easily beaten to it by Szczęsny on the right-hand edge of the six-yard box. No super-fast start to the half for Inter this time.
Barcelona get the second half started. As expected, Inter have been forced into a change, their injured captain Lautaro Martínez making way for Mehdi Taremi. Barca meanwhile have swapped out Gerard Martín for Ronald Araújo.
Half-time entertainment. To reset one’s equilibrium.
HALF TIME: Barcelona 2-2 Inter
The fastest-ever goal in a Champions League semi. A spectacular overhead kick. An exquisitely cushioned assist. Lamine Yamal. Lamine Yamal. Lamine Yamal. That … that was football.
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45 min: There will be two additional first-half minutes. Can we not have 22, please?
44 min: Martínez suddenly pulls up. He wants to come off, but Simone Inzaghi screams at his captain to continue. Martinez hobbles around, but stays on for now.
43 min: Raphinha tries to score with a sidefoot into the bottom left from 25 yards. It’s blocked out for a corner, and from the set piece, Lamal nearly successfully one-twos his way down the right channel and into a shooting position. He’s crowded out just in time.
42 min: Kounde can’t continue, and Eric García comes on in his stead.
40 min: Kounde goes down holding his left leg. On comes the trainer. The only way the ferocious pace of this game could be halted.
GOAL! Barcelona 2-2 Inter (Torres 38)
Yeah, they’ve responded well all right. Pedri, in space down the inside-right channel, crosses long towards Raphinha, who cushions a header back across goal and into the path of Torres, who gets in ahead of Acerbi and can’t miss from six yards. Barca are level! That was so simple yet so perfectly executed. Inter ripped apart with ease.
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37 min: … from which nothing comes. But this is gloriously relentless. Barca have responded so well to the toxic shock of going two goals down at home, in short order, in a European semi-final. Against an Italian team.
36 min: Yamal wins the ball in the middle of the park with a crunching tackle on Bastoni. This lad can do it all. Barca break and Olmo aims for the bottom right. Sonner turns around the post for a corner …
34 min: Yamal again down the right. Another cross. Dimarco sent to the shops for the Mundo Deportivo this time. Sonner slaps away, just in time, with Raphinha lurking. This is getting old.
33 min: Barella, spotting Szczęsny wandering around outside his box, shapes to shoot from the centre circle. He times it all wrong and takes a fresh-air swipe. He ends up looking a tad preposterous, but full marks for ambition, and to be fair it feels like the sort of evening when a goal from the halfway line isn’t out of the question. There’s something in the air. Such a beautiful horizon!
31 min: Yamal is borderline unplayable. He crosses low from the right, nearly teeing up either Torres or Raphinha on the penalty spot. Sommer does exceptionally well to get down and paw the ball away, though he’s fortunate it flies off between the two Barca attackers.
30 min: De Jong rolls a pass down the inside-right channel to Olmo, who spins on the edge of the box and fights his way past Bastoni. He’s clear in the box! But the ball sticks between his feet and though he gets a shot away, it’s weak and straight at Sommer.
28 min: … and relax. Nobody’s going to relax, though, are they?
26 min: Three astonishing goals in 24 minutes. And it’s nearly four in 26, as Yamal sends Dimarco off to the nearest tapas bar, dribbling into the box from the right, hitting the byline, cutting back to send the defender skidding hysterically off the pitch, and lashing a shot across Sommer and off the underside of the crossbar! In fact, Sommer got a fingertip to that. What a save that was. But what outrageous skill by Yamal.
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GOAL! Barcelona 1-2 Inter (Yamal 24)
Oh my goodness, Barcelona need something … and oh my goodness, here it is! Yamal picks up the ball, facing the wrong way out on the right flank. He spins Thuram, drifts elegantly into the box past Mkhitaryan, opens his body, and sends a fierce curler towards the top left. It pings off the upright and in. What a goal! What a genius! What a match!
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23 min: Pedri didn’t fancy competing for that dropping ball. Had he done so, Dumfries might not have been permitted to high-kick the ball goalwards. But there was no challenge, so no danger.
GOAL! Barcelona 0-2 Inter (Dumfries 21)
Dimarco wins a corner down the left. It’s hit long. Acerbi wins a header ten yards out. The ball drops to Dumfries, six yards out. Dumfries bicycle-kicks sensationally past Szczęsny and into the left-hand side of the net! Shock around the Olímpic Lluís Companys!
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19 min: Yamal wins another corner down the right. Raphinha loops it long. De Jong prepares to head home at the far stick, but Bisseck flicks away for a corner on the other side. That one’s worked to Torres, on the left-hand corner of the six-yard box. Torres chests down and pearls a shot across goal and inches wide of the right-hand post. Sommer was rooted to the spot.
17 min: Justin Kavanagh wonders: “Isn’t Rule No1 of European football Never Give Up a Goal in the First 30 Seconds to an Italian Team in the First Leg? At home?” Dimarco offers an answer to this question by taking an absolute age over a throw-in, a tactic that registers a full score of 11 on our patented Mourinho-o-meter™. The home fans not happy.
15 min: Martin cops a hand in the face from Dumfries, and this is a free kick for Barca out on the left. Raphinha curls it long, but it’s an easy punch clear for Sommer. This is being played at 101 miles per hour.
14 min: Bisseck slips and allows Raphinha to skedaddle down the left. A low cross is hooked away by Mkhitaryan, with home heroes lurking. Neither team look particularly assured in defence.
12 min: Torres meets a low cross from the right and drags his shot inches wide right. So close to an equaliser.
11 min: Barella crosses from the right. Martinez goes up for a header but is beaten by Szczęsny’s punch. Mkhitaryan returns it with a low drive from distance. It flies inches wide of the left-hand post. Had it been on target, Szczęsny wasn’t getting there … but Martinez had grazed the ball as it came through with an attempted backflick, and so it’d have been ruled out for offside anyway.
9 min: Yamal bursts down the right and nearly gets the better of Bastoni, but the defender sticks out an arm and eases him out of the road. Yamal goes over in the box, and you’ve seen very soft penalties been given for that sort of challenge – but not this time.
8 min: Inter shuttle the ball towards Dumfries out on the right again. Dumfries tries to beat Martinez in a footrace, but can’t burn past his man. Inter clearly fancy their chances down this flank.
6 min: Çalhanoğlu and De Jong challenge for a dropping ball in the Inter box. De Jong gets there first and goes down, claiming contact and a penalty, but the referee’s not interested and neither is VAR.
5 min: Torres makes good down the right and wins the first corner of the game. Raphinha can’t beat the first man with his delivery. Very poor. But it’s been all Barca since that jaw-dropping start by Inter.
4 min: Yamal responds with a couple of dribbles down the right. At the end of the second, he stands one up to the far stick, where Raphinha awaits … but Bisseck is on point to clear. What a start to this semi-final!
2 min: …. so Inter missed Thuram all right. What a way for him to break Inter’s three-game goalless streak!
GOAL! Barcelona 0-1 Inter (Thuram 30 sec)
Dumfries barrels down the right into space. He crosses. Kounde half-clears. Barella picks up possession again and slips the ball down the right for Dumfries, who crosses once more. Martinez slips. Thuram, six yards out and facing the wrong way, dispatches the ball into the bottom left with an audacious back-flick!
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Inter get the ball rolling. They’re playing in white this evening. And they’re immediately on the attack …
Here come the teams … and Lamine Yamal, who felt a twinge upon slipping while taking a shot in the warm-up, is still in the Barcelona line-up. He doesn’t look particularly concerned as the Champions League anthem is blasted out, nor when he slaps hands with the Inter players. No Ronaldo-at-the-Stade-de-France-style drama to see here. We’ll be off in a minute, once everyone pays their respects to Pope Francis.
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A big blow for Barcelona. Lamine Yamal has departed the warm-up, gingerly holding his left thigh and groin. He goes down the tunnel looking concerned. He’s not moving too awkwardly, but he might not be risked, with the second leg, a possible final, and a La Liga title-decider against Real Madrid all on the horizon.
That 2010 semi-final between José and Barça. “Ah, to return to the days when the global challenge uppermost in mind was how to correctly pronounce Eyjafjallajökull,” sighs Grant Tennille, all salad days and nostalgic haze. Well, sir, the MBM can help you with that.
How Inter got here. The Italian champions finished fourth in the group stage. Their campaign began with a goalless draw at Manchester City, before chalking up six wins – Red Star Belgrade (h) 4-0, Young Boys (a) 1-0, Arsenal (h) 1-0, RB Leipzig (h) 1-0, Sparta Prague (a) 1-0 and Monaco (h) 3-0 – plus a 1-0 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen. (Five 1-0s and a goalless draw! Helenio Herrera would have been delighted with that sequence of scorelines.) Anyway, Feyenoord were seen off 4-1 on aggregate in the round of 16, and then it was Bayern Munich in the quarters …
How Barcelona got here. The Catalans came second in the mega-group, despite losing their first fixture 2-1 away at Monaco. They went on to beat Young Boys (h) 5-0, Bayern Munich (h) 4-1, Red Star Belgrade (a) 5-2, Brest (h) 3-0, Borussia Dortmund (a) 3-2 and Benfica (a) 5-4, before finally drawing 2-2 at home with Atalanta. Benfica were dispatched 4-1 on aggregate in the round of 16, then Barca faced Dortmund in the quarters, whereupon …
Pre-match entertainment. Here’s Jonathan Liew on the redemption of Raphinha.
Barcelona name the same XI that started the Copa del Rey final. Robert Lewandowski remains absent with a muscle injury.
Internazionale have lost their last three matches without scoring, something that hasn’t happened since February 2012, so it’s no surprise that they’ve made five changes to their starting XI after the 1-0 home defeat to Roma. Marcus Thuram, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Denzel Dumfries, Alessandro Bastoni and Yann Bisseck step up; Davide Frattesi, Marko Arnautović, Carlos Augusto and Matteo Darmian drop to the bench, while Benjamin Pavard misses out after picking up an ankle injury at the weekend. Inter will be delighted to welcome back Thuram: the striker, who has 17 goals in all competitions so far this season, missed all three games of Inter’s blank run.
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The teams
Barcelona: Szczesny, Kounde, Cubarsi, Martinez, Gerard, de Jong, Gonzalez, Yamal, Olmo, Raphinha, Torres.
Subs: Pena, Astralaga, Araujo, Gavi, Fati, Torre, Christensen, Lopez, Victor, Garcia, Fort.
Internazionale: Sommer, Bisseck, Acerbi, Bastoni, Dumfries, Barella, Calhanoglu, Mkhitaryan, Dimarco, Lautaro Martinez, Thuram.
Subs: Di Gennaro, Josep Martinez, de Vrij, Zielinski, Arnautovic, Frattesi, Asllani, Carlos Augusto, Darmian, Re Cecconi, Zalewski, Taremi.
Referee: Clément Turpin (France).
VAR: Jérôme Brisard (France).
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Preamble
Barcelona are currently high on life. They’re playing some delightful football. They’ve just won the Copa del Rey, they’re four points clear in La Liga with five matches to go, and the only team who can realistically stop them winning a domestic double are in no fit state, currently preoccupied with the throwing of a season-long tanty. And so it’s not much of a leap to suggest the continental treble is very much on. Hansi Flick and Robert Lewandowski have already completed one of these, with Bayern Munich in 2020, so Barca are in possession of the roadmap. It really is on.
Internazionale’s mood is less buoyant. They haven’t won in four, and while that sequence started with the 2-2 draw that saw them squeak past Bayern Munich in the quarters, they’ve since fallen behind Napoli on the Serie A run-in after back-to-back defeats against Bologna and Roma, and been spanked 3-0 in the semi-final of the Coppa Italia by their arch rivals Milan. A season that promised a continental treble of their own is unravelling at pace. They need something tonight.
But all hope for Inter is not lost. Because this semi-final clash will be played under the historical cloud of this …
… so it’s all set up just so. It promises to be great fun, one way or another. Kick-off at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys is at 9pm Barcelona time, 8pm BST. It’s on!
