Barcelona 1 (2) – 0 (3) Inter Milan: The End of a Dream or The End of an Obsession?

By Dominic Vieira

Barcelona 1 -0 Inter Milan, Camp Nou, Semi-Final 2nd leg (2-3 Aggregate)

An underperforming Barcelona beat an extremely defensive but brilliantly tactical Inter Milan 1-0 at the Nou Camp tonight. Pique’s sublime second half strike was not sufficient for the current champions to knock out the ten men Italian team. Inter Milan fought hard to book their ticket for the final at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid. José Mourinho got his tactics right in a very narrow and passionate encounter.

Yesterday, the atmosphere of the match was intensified and set alight by another, typical José Mourinho mind game. He commented about the match and stated, “It’s not a war, it’s a game.” However, after tonight’s performance, it wouldn’t be hard to contradict his point.

Barcelona was without their leader Puyol and the flamboyant Iniesta. Guardiola made two unexpected changes in the starting line-up; Yaya Toure was selected as centre back to partner Piqué and Milito given the thumbs up as left-back instead of Maxwell. On the other side of the field, Sneijder and Maicon managed to recover in time for the match, but a late injury from Pandev ruled him out of the match, Chivu stepped up for the challenge.