Barcelona was stunned by Inter Milan last night in an amazing display of tactical football.
From the start, it looked like the game would play out very much like the first leg, with Barcelona playing their flashy but somewhat predictable passing football and Inter refraining from putting pressure on the opposing players until they reached the final third of the pitch. And surely this strategy was working for the Italians, who were in the lead 1-3 on aggregate.
But the game took a sudden twist when Thiago Motta, himself a former Barcelona player, got sent off around the half hour mark for an alleged assault on Barcelona’s Sergio Busquets. On viewing the replay, it’s clear that the Barcelona player took full advantage of the slight contact he suffered and played out an injury.
Inter re-arranged their defensive wall, but now it was hard for them to have their counter-attacking surges like up until then. Still, in the first half – and pretty much until the last quarter of an hour of play, the only real danger for the Internazionale goal was a shot by Messi from outside the box.
When the final 10 minutes came, Barcelona once again laid siege on Inter’s box, but only got one goal out of the two they needed, by Pique.
Inter will now face Bayern Munich in the finals, with Barcelona left to contend for the Spanish League, with Real Madrid breathing down their necks.
