Jose Mourinho Masterclass The Special One’s Defensive Defiance at its Best
Though theatrical and controversial yet it was a night of intense drama at the Camp Nou last night where a dogged and utterly resilient performance by Jose Mourinho’s bulldogs as they shut out the most prolific attack in European football.
It was pure Mourinho, pure drama and pure controversy. Despite playing for more than an hour with ten men Mourinho’s Inter produced a performance of sheer doggedness on a night of sheer hostility which was further stoked by the red card given to Thiago Motta.
Mourinho pulled off a surprise even before kick off when at the last minute he replaced Goran Pandev with the more defensive Christian Chivu to leave the Catalans baffled but that is Mourinho for you.
Mourinho had not descended to Barcelona to entertain, he had one and only one thing in mind and that was to win and win he did, though on aggregate but would he care? And the prize now along with the satisfaction of ending Barcelona’s obsession of lifting the trophy at Santiago Barnabeau is a chance to become only the third manager (Behind Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfield) in history to lift the European Trophy with two different clubs.
From the start Cambiasso and Motta along with the back four of Zanetti, Lucio, Samuel and Chivu contested the right of Barca playmakers Xavi and Messi to breathe let alone give them any space on the pitch and even when they somehow managed to break free the came up against the wall in goal Julio Cesar.
Barcelona’s only shot on target was a 20 yard curler by Lionel Messi that was thwarted by an acrobatic save by Julio Cesar.
Thiago Motta was given his marching orders in the 27th minute when his hanging arm in the air touched Sergio Busquets face and the Spaniard went down theatrically holding his face as if he had been stabbed in the eye, a performance worthy of an Oscar. Motta was fuming, Mourinho raging, inter flabbergasted but Guardiola sensed an ease which was never to come.
Inter had 10 men but they also had a special one, whose prowling presence on the touchline reminded his battling troops that he was there with them in this fight, standing right in the face of the most lethal attacks in world football and yet emerging victorious.
At the end of first half Barcelona had 78 % possession and had completed 335 passes to the visitors 43 but the only stat that mattered was overwhelmingly in favour of the Italians, that Barcelona still required 2 goals to progress through, Mourinho’s job was half done but still long way from a dream result.
In the second half Barca pressed more but only to run into a concrete wall, Zanetti was industrious Samuel stupendous, Chivu cunning and Lucio magnificent. Even in the absence of the shield in front of them they stood defiant in extremely difficult circumstances but refused to budge and manned their barricades expertly.
Guardiola was seen panicking on the touch line as he juggled his resources, replacing the ineffective Ibrahimovic with Bojan and Bisquets with jefferen while Mourinho replaced his midfield terrier Sniejder with Muntari, Eto with Mariaga. Barcelona were playing 2-4-6 while Inter deployed an 8-0-1.
And with 84 minutes played Inter’s defensive defiance was broken when Pique from a blatantly offside position was calmness personified as he outfoxed Cesar and Lucio to turn and shoot in an empty to set up a grandstand finish.
But it was not be as Inter stood defiant in the face of misery, emerging from the grueling encounter bloodied but triumphant.
For the distraught Catalans who felt a red tear rolling down the face of the Beautiful Game, pointing to Barcelona’s statistics of 548 passes completed to Inter’s 67, one just had to admire the remarkable resilience of Jose Mourinho’s well-organized and extremely motivated men. Pique’s goal although gave some hope but it was too little too late and by then Mourinho was already off to Madrid.
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