Barcelona 3 – 3 Inter
Barcelona and Inter Milan served up a classic Champions League semi-final that ended 3-3 as Lamine Yamal inspired a Barca comeback.
Marcus Thuram set the tone for an absorbing encounter, flicking home an outrageous finish after just 30 seconds. Inter Milan didn’t read the script in terms of Barcelona’s bid for the quadruple and Denzel Dumfries acrobatically hooked the Italians into a two-goal lead.
Barcelona needed a source of inspiration and Yamal, who doesn’t turn 18 until July, scored a mesmerising solo goal as Inter couldn’t deal with his remarkable dribbling and star quality. Yamal might have had a second after another mesmerising run but his shot from near the byline had to be tipped onto the bar by Sommer – but it was Ferran Torres that grabbed the leveller after a brilliant knockdown from Raphinha.
Barcelona’s Ferran Torres celebrates after scoring
Lautaro Martinez pulled up on the stroke of half-time and the Inter captain was substituted on the resumption but the visitors took the lead once more as Dumfries bagged his second after 63 minutes.
But the game took one more spectacular twist when Raphinha’s thunderbolt strike from fully 30 yards crashed off the underside of the bar and deflected in off Yann Sommer.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan bundled in as Barcelona’s defending was exposed again but the Armenian was offside by the narrowest of margins while Yamal chipped off the bar and Sommer tipped over from another Raphinha pile driver as the tie finished all-square.
The story in pictures…
Inzaghi: Yamal is a generational talent
Inter Milan boss Simone Inzaghi:
“Lamine [Yamal] is the kind of talent that comes along every 50 years, and to see him up close really impressed me. I’m really enthusiastic about what my lads did. They worked really hard against him, doubling and tripling up on him.
“At half-time, we changed a little. We had to mark Lamine Yamal even better – that guy really impacted on me tonight. He really did. So we wanted to play and press much higher up the pitch.
“There were excellent moments today but times where we suffered too. We were facing a great team in the form of Barcelona. But now they know they’re facing a great side in Inter next week, and in Milan.”
Mkhitaryan: A crazy game
Inter Milan’s Mkhitaryan, speaking to TNT Sports:
“It was a crazy game. A great game to watch, but not to play, as it was very hard.
“We have done our best, but I think we could have done even better. We were leading for 20 minutes, it’s just that Barca put lots of pressure on us.
“They were very good with the ball. Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep it 3-2.
“It is not going to be easy [in second leg] as we lost our captain, our leader Lautaro Martinez. We have to try do our best to replace him.”
Raphinha: Maybe we took too many risks
Raphinha speaking to UEFA.com:
“Given that we were at home, the feeling is that we could have produced a much better result. It’s fair to give Inter lots of credit because they did their things really well.
“They are particularly strong at corners. The big thing for us is that we’ve found a result which allows us to know that anything can happen in Milan.
“At 2-0 down, we simply stayed calm and began the fight to overcome the deficit. We began to play our game and to impose our plan. Maybe we took too many risks overall, but we wanted a positive result and our obligation was to try and build a win from this first leg. The result isn’t the worst in the world.”
