They beat like two colossi, each with their weapons and different ways of feeling football, in which everything is about if it is about putting together a great game like the 3-3 between Barcelona and Inter. defense attack. Possession against mastery of spaces. Passes against transitions. Inventiveness against strategy. Nothing was missing, perhaps a winner, who could have opted for the volume of Barcelona or to the inter.
A first semifinal that left a lot and enhanced the expectation for the retaliation next Tuesday, in the Giuseppe Meazza. An almost uninterrupted frenzy in the 90 minutes, in which the bitter grimace of Lautaro Martínez, that did not go out to play the second half for a discomfort in the left posterior thigh, suffered after a brake against Dani Olmo. The bull immediately took his hands to the face, sorry; stayed out of a match that integrates His best season at the Champions League, with eight goals in 12 presences.
Studies – in principle would be a distension – will determine whether Lautaro may be taken into account for six days. Difficult. The intense season takes its toll. The bahiense had made defensive wear, continuously withdrawal, since Inter quickly put an advantage. He is the captain and also preaches with the effort and sacrifice. In the selective attacks of his team to score both goals, he had no participation. His offensive form did not record auctions to the arc or touches of the ball in the opposite area. The development left him far from Szczesny, he put on the overall and the body left it on the leg. Inappropriate injury and low sensitive for a team that has a reference for his teammates in Lautaro.
The coach Simone Inzaghi He did not describe an encouraging panorama: “Unfortunately he had a small problem, he came from eight consecutive games. It will be very difficult to recover Lautaro for the second leg. On Tuesday we will probably play without our captain and that will already be a final for us. “
It was a show that filled the eyes of the impartial ones, but that did not satisfy Barcelona, installed at a football level high enough to get one more victory, of the many that brought him to the previous step of the Champions League final, they gave him the Super Cup of Spain and the Copa del Rey, and they have it at the top of the League of Spain.
Barcelona traced a 0-2 and a 2-3. The same knew little in the light of a 72 percent possession, of their 19 Remature (9 to the arch) and the seven shortcuts and four outlets of the goalkeeper Yann Summer, One of the figures of the night at the Lluís Companys stadium. On the other hand, Szczesny did not prove any save and received three goals, also a symptom of the local defensive weakness.
In 30 seconds, the first goal was made by the team that was least to attack and greater disinterest would prove to control the game from possession. Football has those unforeseen turns, which nobody sees coming. Inter dragged three consecutive games without converting, Each with losses that hit hard: two for series A, which cost him to resign the leadership against Napoli’s attack, and one for the Italian Cup, with the elimination by win against, nothing less, that Milan.
Inter is a team composed of hard players, with strong personality. He took this semifinal as a possibility of claiming, of putting a hinge to his most pronounced pothole in the season, just when the titles begin to be defined. With that motivation, in 30 seconds it put 1-0, in the first attack, when only one player had touched the ball in a rejection. Lautaro had come down to the central circle to pivot, a function that fulfills regularly. Dumfries climbed the right and sent the center that Marcus Thuram defined with a delicious taco with his right leg behind the left. Golazo, to put a frame.
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Inter surprised, Started a party that would never stop, that would be transformed into A carousel of emotions. And also in a styles duel. Because by the veins of this intercourse some of the historical bolt. A low block 5-3-2, in the last 30 meters of his arch, and the trigger to shoot the counterattack. An approach that was accentuated before a Barcelona with an opposite posture, which feeds on the ball to the empacho and attacks the quality that emerges from its great individualities, with Yamal at the head.
Forced to reverse the early disadvantage, Barcelona’s 17 -year -old youth took the spear. Inter tried to cage him between Dimarco, Bastoni and Mkhitaryan, but Yamal always finds time and space to impose his gambeta. The meeting was played near the visiting area, but when sporadically it passed to the opposite, Inter 2-0, also stabbing in the strategy plays. The central defender Iñigo Martínez had already slipped into Thuram’s goal and now lost high with Acerbi after the Dimarco corner; The ball was in the air and Dumfries spliced it with a scissors. Two attacks, two Inter goals in 21 minutes.
Apart from its wide football repertoire, an important feature that distinguishes Barcelona in this season is its character to recover to adverse results. It is not a team that is consumed in its lyricism, it also shows heart. He ended up winning matches that lost with Real Madrid (Supercopa de España and Copa del Rey) and Atlético de Madrid (La Liga). In the Champions League also traced in front of Benfica, in Portugal.
Lamine Yamal, which in warming went to the costumes for a pain in the left leg, scored the discount with a goal that the Catalan fans help them fight nostalgia for Lionel Messi: Left -handed after breaking your waist to a score with a hitch. Ferrán Torresreplacement for the injured Lewandowski, matched Raphinha’s head assistance. In 16 minutes, Barcelona jumped from 0-2 to 2-2.
The local game lost some fluidity in the second stage and intended more regularly. Hansi Flick rearmed the defense after Koundé’s injury and Martín’s departure. The Iranian Taremi replaced Lautaro and Carlos Augusto entered for an exhausted Dimarco to try to hinder Yamal.
Dumfries, a side transformed into a lane, was Inter the main offensive weapon of Inter: an assistance and two goals, the second after imposing itself on a corner. It was 3-2, but two minutes later Raphinha matched with a shot from outside the area he gave in the crossbar and bounced on Sommer’s sword. Goal against.
There were 25 minutes left the time added and it was impossible to bet that 3-3 would not break. Mkhitaryan the VAR annulled the goal for having the tip of an offside loot. Sommer continued to revolted and a Yamal auction, in his 100th party, stung a ball that gave in the crossbar. The series is open. A victor was missing, but won football.
