Mourinho’s Inter Milan has over come Barcelona to qualify for the Champions League Final at Madrid after losing 1-0 at the Nou Camp but winning 4-3 on aggregate.

Mourinho’s tactical expertise with Inter Milan’s defensive play was able to halt the Spanish, European and World Champions after a faultless display of zone defence by the Italians to take them to the Champions League Final for the first time since 1972.

Barcelona took control of the game from the start and piled the pressure on Inter Milan with attack after attack, but to no avail as the Inter Milan side had shown the perfect example of zone defence.

The game looked all but over for the Italian’s when Thiago Motta received a straight red for a challenge which a yellow card would have been argued over.

While Motta had the ball he tried to shrug off Sergio Busquets who was behind him, Motta’s hand pushed the neck and lover chin area of the Spanish player who went down in an over dramatic form. To add to insult, Busquets was clearly seen on video peaking around between his fingers while holding his face. (watch the video bellow and you’ll clearly see what I mean).

But to be fare the match which had the potential of being the biggest game this year was largely marred by the relentless card showing and game stopping by the referee. What more do you expect when the goal keeper of a team, receives a yellow for time wasting in just the 34th minute in the Champions League Semi Final.

However the clash turned into a game of tactical expertise with a nervous manager vs an experienced one being Jose Mourinho.

When Motta received the red card, Guardiola was seen talking with his coaching staff into what there next move should be. During this talk Samuel Eto’o dropped to left wing and even Milito was seen helping the midfield so in other words, Inter had excepted the game in their own half.

A full 18 minutes or so playing time had elapsed before Guardiola had substituted Gabriel Milito for Maxwell, and even then the left wing which was defended by Eto’o was not attacked enough. Eto’s inexperience as a left winger, could have easily been exploited by Barcelona but the correct substitutions did not come or was too late.

Jose Mourinho clearly did everything in the book, especially after dropping to ten men in just the 27th minute, to motivate his players as can be expected by a manager who demolished the Chelsea side by using his expert tactical knowledge.

Talking about Chelsea, it is fair to say that Mourinho’s men started to believe in them selves after the Chelsea win, they started to believe that they were a Champions League team.

I wrote an article on the Champions League first leg between Inter Milan vs Barcelona at the San Siro, about Pep Guardiola’s mistake of taking of Ibrahimovic when losing 3-1 and putting on Abidal, a defensive player.

This week he made a similar mistake again. With Barcelona needing two goals he decided to take off Zlatan Ibrahimovic and bring on Bojan Krkic. From this I thought Guardiola wanted to stop the wing play and concentrate on breaking through the Inter defence but Barca carried on attacking from the wings.

Now Bojan is a player with great talent and promises a great future but on such a big level and in such a desperate situation what was Guardiola thinking when bringing on an experienced 19-year-old who is 5ft 7 and much shorter and less stronger compared to the Inter defence.

Ibrahimovic could have done much more along side Bojan, with a tired Inter defence the closing moments could have been much different had Ibrahimovic stayed on the pitch.

Pique’s 84th minute goal, which any forward player would be proud of, came too late and did too little impact on an Inter Milan side which had literally been hammered by the Barcelona side but managed to come clean at the end.

Mourinho’s substitutions were also spot on as he excepted the ball in their own half, he took off influential attacking players such as Wesley Sneijder, Diego Milito, and Samuel Eto’o and decided to keep the middle crowded which also caused the Inter Milan side to be less tired.

note: At the end of the game, Barcelona had a huge 75% ball possession lead on Inter Milan’s 25%. Barca had a total of eight shots on goal in which four were on target while Inter had only four shots on goal and none were on target. Yet Inter Milan had committed only 15 fouls compared to Barcelona’s 20 fouls. Now considering Barca’s ball possession, this shows how controlled Inter’s defence were to have commuted so few fouls.

At the end Mourinho was able to beat Barcelona to reach the Champions League Final an achievement which the Portuguese got by using his brain and pride, not forgetting to mention that he did deserve it.

Mourinho’s Inter Milan will now face Van Gaal’s Bayern Munich in the Champions League Final at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid, Spain on the 22nd of May.

Note: Two very influential Dutch players from both Bayern Munich (Ajren Robben) and Inter Milan (Wesley Sneijder) will come face to face in the Champions League Final. Now why is this so important? Both were Real Madrid players last year but were sent away for Kaka, Ronaldo, Benzema, Alonso, etc. Funny world that these two players are in the Champions League Final when Real were out in just the knock out stages of the competition.

Video Champions League Semi Final, Barcelona Vs Inter Milan

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NationalTurk – Sports / John Steel
john-steel@nationalturk.com
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