It remains one of Jose Mourinho’s greatest triumphs. Beating Barcelona en route to the treble in 2010 with Inter Milan was particularly sweet for the new Tottenham manager. And it was all set up thanks an impressive 3-1 win at San Siro.
In the Champions League semi-final first leg in Milan, Mourinho’s side went behind to an early Pedro goal, but stormed back with strikes from Wesley Sneijder, Maicon and Diego Milito.
Barca had been forced to travel to Italy by coach due to the ash cloud, but still dominated possession, only for Mourinho’s men to frustrate Pep Guardiola’s great side - and also Lionel Messi.
“We had, during the game, different positioning in relation to the movement of Barcelona’s players and our analysis our difficulties and after analysing our possibilities of hurting the opponent,” Mourinho said in conversation with The Coach’s Voice earlier this year.
“The first leg was at home. Obviously we knew that the second leg at Barcelona would be an even more difficult match for us to play.
“We had [Thiago] Motta, [Esteban] Cambiasso and [Wesley] Sneijeder (in the middle); [Samuel] Eto’o and [Goran] Pandev (wide right and left; [Diego] Milito (up front).
“In some moments of the game, we bring Pandev more to the inside and Eto’o more close to Diego, occupying the central zone with almost a diamond, but giving Eto’o the chance to be more close to Diego.”
And on his plans to stop Barca’s best player, he said: “This was the guy, I forget the name. Ah, Messi. It was with him that we started by analysing the game and we started to analyse the problems.
“[Zlatan] Ibrahimovic was paying as a nine; Messi was playing from the right, but obviously with the freedom to go to many different areas; Dani Alves was the player to go forward all the time.
“Our decision basically was what we were going to do when Messi was going between the lines and Alves going forward.
“The situation for us was very clear. He can not play alone when he comes in between the lines. So this player here (left central midfield) must be a player totally in control of his area, always in communication with the left-back.
“There is a moment when he becomes yours and I stay in the zone. If he comes in between the lines, you have to go. But you have to defend Alves. There was a combination of ideas, but basically everything was around not letting Messi play.
"I remember after the game, the press was telling about the word ‘gabbia’, which I think the real translation was like a jail (it actually means cage) to Messi.
“Because in the end, we didn’t play man to man, but [Javier] Zanetti, Motta, Cambiasso… everybody was responsible for any position Messi could go to.”
“Even if Messi was going more to the left, he (the right central midfield) was going to go, then Sneijder was going to close. So our defensive approach was based on this positional problem. And probably the only positional problem we had.”
With that problem resolved and Messi’s influence minimised, Inter still had to take advantage at the other end.
“The second part of the plan was how to hurt them. It was the first leg at home. We needed to win the match; we needed to score goals,” Mourinho said.
“Obviously, the way to hurt them was with our attacking transition. The moment we recovered the ball.
“We were always trying to make it compact, bringing Eto’o and Pandev inside, letting the ball go to the sides. When they defined the sides, we decided this was the trigger for us to press.
"The point was, even if we didn’t have the wide players to attack behind Maxwell and Alves, was to get players into these positions. From the compact block that we had, not to be afraid to attack these spaces where we are going to hurt them.
“And we had Maicon, who was phenomenal that night, against a player we knew very very well: Maxwell. Very strong with the ball, but not so strong in the recovering of these spaces.
“Alves, the culture of Barcelona, was always for Alves to be attacking those spaces that normally opponents were going to give them because of Messi coming to the inside, and we needed to attack these spaces where [Carles] Puyol and [Gerard] Pique were very exposed.
“We knew they were very strong in the defensive transition in the opposition half. They were very very strong by trying to push up and close every possible space, but then we knew, also because it was not the kind of challenge they would face week in, week out in the Spanish league, they were not so good coping with the spaces. And we had very fast people attacking the spaces.
“We were going from a defensive low block, but going very strong with three, four, five players into attacking positions in the transition. And it worked.
“We had more chances to score the fourth than to be in trouble. We were totally in control.”
Milito was slightly offside when he scored the third, but Mourinho’s tactics stopped Europe’s best team - and Messi - in their tracks and went through after hanging on for a 1-0 loss with 10 men at Camp Nou.
And in the final at the Santiago Bernabeu, victory over Bayern Munich earned Inter the treble - and Mourinho his move to Real Madrid.
