Champions League final preview: Bayern Munich v Inter Milan
In the build up to his side’s Champions League semi-final clash with Barcelona, Inter Milan’s José Mourinho spoke of how the idea of winning the giant trophy at Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium had become an “obsession” for the Catalan giants.
Mourinho is hated in Barcelona, and the “obsession” comment only intensified that. To win at the Bernabéu was all they could think of. It was clawing at them, almost suffocating them, he said.
It worked.
Barça were subdued as Inter squeezed the life out of them and went through. But if the thought of winning a third Champions League title in five years at the home of their fiercest rivals was a damaging “obsession” for Barça’s players, then what is the thought of winning Inter’s first European Cup in 45 years doing to Mourinho’s men?
For a club of Inter’s size and tradition, it is a quite embarrassing statistic. Manchester United had to wait 31 years between their first and second European Cups, while there was 21 years between Liverpool’s fourth win in 1984 and that unexpected 2005 triumph. For both sets of supporters that felt like an eternity, but Inter’s fans have suffered more than most. Not only have they not claimed the giant trophy for 45 years, they’ve had to watch city rivals AC Milan win it six times since then.
All of which is unlikely to bother Mourinho.
The latest chapter in the entertaining life story of the Portuguese takes him to the home of the club that he is widely tipped to join in the summer. A win, and he’d become only the third man to lift the trophy with two different clubs, but then so would Louis van Gaal if he’s the man parading around the Bernabéu on Saturday night, and while much of the pre-match focus has been on Mourinho, it’s been easy to forget that he’s coming up against a formidable opponent. A win for Inter would give Mourinho a trophy treble this season, but then so would success for Van Gaal and Bayern.
They may have had a fortuitous route to the final – only a couple of stunning Arjen Robben goals saw them squeeze past Fiorentina and Manchester United – but Bayern undoubtedly deserve their place in Madrid.
Robben, in particular, has been superb, but he’s been backed up by stellar performances from unsung heroes such as workhorse Croatian forward Ivica Olić, powerful Argentinian defender Martín Demichelis and veteran penalty taking goalkeeper Hans-Jörg Butt. They certainly have the team to test Mourinho and Inter, but whether they’ve got enough to win it remains to be seen.
Such is Mourinho’s image and, it seems, his destiny, it is almost inconceivable that Inter will lose.
With the media making him very much the star attraction of a match that will bring together two teams of extremely talented footballers, defeat doesn’t appear to be an option for him.
In the Mourinho mind, delivering Inter their first European Cup in 45 years and then disappearing into the Madrid night isn’t just the most fitting way to kick-start the next phase of his career, it is exactly what he thinks will happen.
He is likely to set Inter up in a manner that will make it hard for Bayern to break them down, before relying on attacking talents such as Wesley Sneijder, Diego Milito, Goran Pandev and Samuel Eto’o – the latter of whom is looking to become only the second man to have scored in three separate European Cup finals – to fire the bullets that will once again crown him as a champion of Europe.
The last time he held that title – with Porto in 2004 – he immediately set sail for Chelsea, where he informed the world that he was “not one of the bottle, I am a Special One.”
Win on Saturday night and not even his harshest critics, even those in Barcelona, could deny that any more.
Prediction: Bayern Munich 0 Inter Milan 2
To read about Bayern's run to the final, click here
To read about Inter's run to the final, click here
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