Barcelona vs Inter Champions League Semi-Final 2nd Leg – Preview and Predictions

Bayern are through to the Champions League final after the Ivic Olic inspired demolition of Lyon last night. Bayern were so good, Lyon defender Cris couldn’t resist a short round of applause. Today we find out who faces Bayern in the final at the Bernabéu on May 22nd.

It’s Barcelona vs Inter at the Camp Nou.

It’s well established that everyone loves seeing Barcelona in action. Beautiful passing, attacking football, Leo Messi and so on. No denying it’s a thing of beauty. But they’re usually cruising, which sort of takes the excitement out of it. For me anyway.

Today they’re at home, but are 3-1 down from the first leg. So we get to see this Barcelona team play under pressure. They’ll apparently be watering the grass at the Camp Nou, and taking the quick passing game to Inter.

Inter boss Jose Mourinho is doing his best to add to that pressure, with what I believe we are legally obliged to label as “mind games”.

“We want to follow a dream,” Mourinho said. “But it’s one thing to follow a dream and another to follow an obsession. For Barcelona it’s an obsession. Our dream is more pure than obsession. A dream is about pride. Our players will be proud to reach the final in Madrid.

“For Barcelona, they reach the dream by winning [the European Cup] in London, Paris and Rome. Now it is an obsession called Madrid and Santiago Bernabéu.

“It’s an obsession you can see and feel. I was here in 1997 and I lived a Spanish Cup final at the Bernabéu between Real Betis and Barça. It seemed like we won the World Cup. To have a Catalan flag in the Bernabéu is an obsession. It’s anti-Madridismo.”

Interesting, though I’m not sure what Mourinho is trying to achieve there. Maybe he wants Barcelona to prove him wrong by deliberately not trying to beat his team and reach the final in Madrid? Or maybe Mourinho just wants his quotes to dominate any previews of the semi-final second leg. Wait a minute… Damn you Special One! You got me!

For more sophisticated previews, I suggest you try the relevant Offside team blogs:
- Ramzi’s reliably excellent Barcelona Offside preview opens with a quote from Buddha, explains why Barca’s system failed in the first leg, but will remain in place for the second leg, and also goes on to suggest a new tactical system for the blaugrana.
- Johonna’s Inter Offside preview begins with a self-reflexive opening paragraph and covers Mario Balotellis’s new haircut, the lengths Mourinho will go to prevent Stankovic from getting weepy, and a magnificent pre-game pep talk featuring this blend of the sensible and the inspriational: “There really isn’t any point in talking about past games. It doesn’t matter what we did last fall, or what we did in 2003. This is the big game and all bets are off.”

Predictions:
No idea. Again. I just know it will be good. So let’s say Barcelona will explode out of the gates and take a 2-0 lead, Inter will pull back a crucial away goal to make it 2-1 and Barcelona will level it at 3-1 with a late goal. Form there I’m seeing a goalless extra time and then Inter winning on spot kicks.

That’s my dangerously specific prediction (with an admission that it’s also an absolute stab in the dark). What do you see happening today? Please share your predictions in the comments.

- Chris will be LiveBlogging the game later today.

Some Related Stories:

Category: Champions League