Barcelona Finally Meet Their Match

The seemingly unstoppable Barcelona were handed their first major defeat since Pep Guardiola took over as manager, nearly two years ago.  The team, widely considered to be among the best ever, were stopped dead in their tracks Wednesday night by Jose' Mourinho's skillfully defending Inter Milan side.

While it's very tempting to describe the match as a victory of anti-football over the beautiful game, one must remember that Barcelona entered the home leg of this particular tie two goals down, after falling to a muscular attacking performance from Inter last week at the San Siro.

Going into the the second leg of the tie with a two goal defecit, it was always going to be an uphill battle for Barcelona.  But then again, this is a Barcelona team that has quite deservedly earned a reputation for being capable of almost anything.  Indeed they seemed to start off in good form, taking the game to Inter for the better part of the first fifteen minutes.

However, much as it had been in the first leg, Inter seemed capable enough of absorbing Barca's pressure, and more or less prevented their attacks from breaking into the center of the box.  This limited Barca's early attempts on goal to distance shots like the one from Pedro Rodriguez that went wide of the post by a yard or two.

But then near the half hour mark things looked as if they could be tilting in Barcelona's favor.  Attempting to win a ball from Inter's Thiago Motta, Barcelona's Sergio Busquets got a hand shoved into his face and duly dropped to the ground, holding his face and writhing in mock agony. 

To television viewers, and Inter Milan, it seemed a transparent display of football theatrics.  But to the referee it was deemed worthy of a sending off for Thiago Motta, who had received the games first yellow card in the opening ten minutes for a foul on fellow Brazilian, Dani Alves.

With Inter down to ten men, Barcelona fans breathed a collective sigh of relief and seemed ready to sit back and watch their heroes put on the kind of rousing, spectacular attacking performance they've come to expect from them.  However no such performance was forthcoming.

Inter, who've seemingly made a career of defensive 1-0 victories in Italy, pulled up the drawbridge, circled the wagons, and parked the bus in front of the goal.  Embittered by the sending off of Motta, and with the scoreline in their favor, the Italian club did what Italian clubs are famous for.  They defended.  And they did it very, very well.

Their central defense in front of the goal proved virtually impenetrable.  This created a unique challenge for a team like Barcelona, who like to wind and cut their way through their opposition with their quick, Johan Cruyff inspired passing football.  However time and time again, this approach seemed to leave their attackers boxed in with nowhere to go and no one to pass to.

Down to ten men, Inter did not press forward and seemed content to merely defend.  Halftime arrived with the scoreline still at 0-0.

In the second half Barcelona subbed Maxwell in for Gabriel Milito.  Again they started off looking fairly dangerous, and it seemed likely that they would score at any moment and get themselves back into the game.  However as the moments ticked by, no such goals were forthcoming.  Throughout the match Inter's defense seemed to not put a single foot wrong.  Particularly Brazilian goal keeper Julio Caeser, who stopped two shots from Lionel Messi that most other keepers woundn't have had a chance against.

Guardiola's subbing out of Ibrahimovic and Busquets for the fresh legs of Jeffren and Bojan seemed to breath some new life into Barca's attack.  However that may have been mitigated by Mourinho taking out his top attackers, Diego Molito (brother of Gabriel), Samuel Eto'o, and Wesley Sniejder, for more defensively minded players.

As the minutes ticked by, Barcelona fans began to feel a creeping resignation.  But then in the 84th minute, Gerard Pique kept his cool under enormous pressure and put the ball in the back of Inter's net while Julio Caeser could do nothing but stand by and watch. 

All at once it was as if Barcelona were being pursued by a swarm of bees.  They frantically pressed the attack against Inter's now wobbly defenses.  Caeser managed to pull off another heroic save, and Bojan scored what would have been the winning goal for Barca only to have it disallowed because of an alleged handball against Yaya Toure.

When the final whistle blew the score was 1-0 in Barcelona's favor.  However the aggregate score made it 3-2 for Inter putting Inter into a Champions League final for the first time since 1972, when they lost to an Ajax Amsterdam side fronted by none other than current honorary Barcelona President, Johan Cruyff.

All of this sets up an intriguing final match between a Bayern Munich side managed by Louis Van Gaal, and an Inter side managed by Jose "the Special One" Mourinho, who was once Van Gaal's assistant coach at Barcelona.  It is also notable that one of the players on that particular Barca team was a certain Josep "Pep" Guardiola.