FC Internazionale Milano's 45-year wait for victory in Europe's leading club competition could soon be over, but final opponents FC Bayern München will not make it easy for them in Madrid.
Exhausted, drained and triumphant, FC Internazionale Milano's players sank to their knees as José Mourinho sprinted across the pitch to salute their ecstatic supporters celebrating wildly high up in Camp Nou's top tier.
Despite the handicap of playing FC Barcelona with just ten men for over an hour following Thiago Motta's dismissal, Inter's tireless running and sheer will finally ended the hosts' defence in a 3-2 aggregate win that earned them a UEFA Champions League final meeting with FC Bayern München at the Santiago Bernabéu.
Not even Gerard Piqué's 84th-minute goal that won the match but not the tie could break Inter's spirit as they denied Barcelona the chance of reclaiming the trophy at the home of their famous rivals, Real Madrid CF. That Barcelona clung so tenaciously to their crown, pushing to the final whistle, will send Bayern – comfortably through against Olympique Lyonnais on Tuesday – a stark warning of how tough a test they face on 22 May.
Four times Inter have faced the titleholders this term, and now they are through to the showpiece after ousting the team Bayern coach Louis van Gaal described as "the best in the world" in their own back yard.
Bayern brio
Of course, Bayern can justifiably claim to have displayed similar fortitude to get this far. Their 4-1 win away against Juventus at the end of the group stage saved a floundering campaign and proved the turning point of their season. Late triumphs over ACF Fiorentina and Manchester United FC then showed they have the discipline and determination to match Inter step for step.
They may need all those qualities to bring their final opponents down from their cloud. Not even the sprinklers being turned on soon after the whistle at Camp Nou could dampen the Italian club's celebrations, and there was a definite symmetry to the Nerazzurri reaching the final at this great stadium. It was here that Mourinho cut his teeth as a coach under the late Sir Bobby Robson and latterly Van Gaal. Ten years since Van Gaal and his assistant went their separate ways they meet again, this time on an equal footing.
Both have won the competition once before, and both will be looking to join Ernst Happel and Ottmar Hitzfeld as just the third coach to do so in charge of two different clubs, Van Gaal having triumphed with AFC Ajax in 1995 and Mourinho nine years later with FC Porto.
While Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola muses on what went wrong, Mourinho and Van Gaal can dream of emulating his achievement last season of winning a UEFA Champions League, domestic league and cup treble. Not even the great Helenio Herrera's Grande Inter achieved that.
Point to prove
The San Siro side's three former Madrid players – Esteban Cambiasso, Walter Samuel and Wesley Sneijder – will all return to the Bernabéu with a point to prove, as will Bayern's Arjen Robben, who like Sneijder was sold by the club last summer. Van Gaal's insistence that Bayern sign Robben is a major reason why only two years after failing to even qualify for the competition, they are looking to join AC Milan, Madrid and Liverpool FC as the only sides to have won it at least five times.
The brilliant winger is in the form of his life and his crucial goals against Fiorentina, United and Lyon epitomise the confidence and freedom, so lacking at Bayern at the start of the season, that now run through Van Gaal's side as they target their first UEFA Champions League crown since 2000/01. The likes of Lucio, Samuel and Cambiasso face another stiff test to subdue the Dutchman, who played under Mourinho at Chelsea, just as they restrained Lionel Messi so well at Camp Nou.
Mourinho insisted pre-match that winning the UEFA Champions League was a dream not an obsession for Inter, but it is 38 years since the Nerazzurri last contested a final and 45 since they won it. Prior to Mourinho's appointment, 28 coaches had come and gone since Herrera last led Inter to European glory, the pressure rising every year and with every European title clinched by city neighbours Milan. For long-serving Inter president Massimo Moratti, the wait could finally soon be over. Only Bayern now stand in Inter's way.
uefa.com
Thursday, May 6, 2010
FC Bayern München and FC Internazionale Milano will be facing the press in the build-up to the UEFA Champions League final, both on home soil and at the Santiago Bernabéu.
FC Bayern München and FC Internazionale Milano have confirmed details of their media open days heralding this season's UEFA Champions League final at the Santiago Bernabéu on Saturday 22 May.
Bayern, for administrative purposes the home team in Madrid, will hold two media days at their Säbener Strasse training base in Munich – on Monday 17 May and Wednesday 19 May. Both events will begin with an open training session at 11.30CET and continue with interview opportunities from 14.00.
Media representatives wishing to attend should fax a request to Holger Quest in the Bayern press office, on +49 89 699 31 8440. The registration form is available via the Bundesliga side's website. The deadline is Thursday 6 May, with confirmations to be given by Monday 10 May.
Priority will be afforded to the Italian and Spanish press on the Monday and, on the Wednesday, to media from countries represented by players in Bayern's squad. Translation will be provided.
Internazionale will stage their open day on Tuesday 18 May at the Italian team's training centre – Centro Sportivo Angelo Moratti, Viale dell Sport, Appiano Gentile. Exact timings and details will be confirmed in due course. Interested parties need not register in advance but should produce media photo IDs upon arrival.
The finalist clubs have also made known their pre-match activities in Madrid. Bayern will take part in two press conferences, with the first scheduled for 15.00 on Thursday 20 May, and featuring two players, at the team hotel – Eurostars Madrid Tower Hotel, Paseo de la Castellana. This event will be accessible to all media.
The next day, Bayern coach Louis van Gaal and several players will participate in a second news conference at the Santiago Bernabéu from 13.00. The same venue will then host the German outfit's open training session from 17.00 to 18.00.
Inter will have an open training session at Appiano Gentile on Friday 21 May, with the exact timing still to be announced. Coach Jose Mourinho and certain players will also be facing the press at the Santiago Bernabéu later that day, from 18.00.
Media activities at the Santiago Bernabéu will be restricted to those carrying UEFA Champions League final accreditation. Simultaneous translation will be available.
uefa.com
A player from the last FC Internazionale Milano team to conquer Europe, Sandro Mazzola hopes the similarities between his side and the current vintage bode well for the final.
The last time FC Internazionale Milano were crowned European champions was in television's black-and-white era. Technology has since moved into HD but, according to former Nerazzurri great Sandro Mazzola, the sides that lifted the trophy in 1964 and 1965 bear more than a passing resemblance to the one that faces FC Bayern München in the UEFA Champions League final. It is a likeness, he told UEFA.com, that starts with the coaches: Helenio Herrera and José Mourinho.
"I think Mourinho is very similar to Herrera in many ways," said Mazzola, who scored twice in Inter's 3-1 final triumph over Real Madrid CF in 1964. "First, because he immediately brought the ball back into training – in many places in Italy the ball is a bit forgotten, but it's the most important tool you use as a player. Herrera did the same when he arrived in Italy. You didn't train much with the ball, but when he arrived he began to use it immediately.
"Another parallel is their relationship with the players," the 67-year-old continued. "They say, 'I'm the coach, I listen to you but I decide.' And they are also similar in their dealings with the press. We are talking different generations, so of course it was a bit different then, but not by much. When Herrera came to Italy, nobody really knew the names of the coaches, nobody cared about the coaches, they didn't really appear in the press, they only worked in the dressing room and on the pitch. And he turned things around. Mourinho, in his way, is a little bit the same."
Another connection between the teams is the name of the president. Angelo Morrati, president of Mazzola's Inter, was the father of current supremo Massimo Moratti. "Angelo was the first modern president who understood football," Mazzola said. "He guided the club with straightforward ideas, with order. He knew how to be human. I think he was the first great president in Italian football."
Many observers compared the tactics used by Mourinho in the semi-final second leg against FC Barcelona to the Catenaccio style that made Herrera's side famous. The Nerazzurri, 3-1 up after the home opener, gave a defensive masterclass in losing 1-0 away to the holders – despite playing with ten men for an hour – to book their place in the 22 May final at the Santiago Bernabéu. If circumstances demanded such a niggardly approach from Mourinho's charges in Catalonia, so Mazzola insists that the 1960s' vintage, contrary to popular belief, also played much of their football on the front foot.
"When I hear about Inter playing Catenaccio, I have to say we played about six matches with Catenaccio and 40 matches with attacking football," the former Italy inside forward said. "I remember my team-mates [Armando] Picchi and [Aristide] Guarneri, two centre-backs, who during San Siro home games could spend 60 minutes looking into the stands, trying to spot a girl to take out that evening because the opposition only played in their half. But then, when we played abroad – and I guess this was a mistake – we didn't feel very comfortable and secure, and stayed back more."
Even so, 'La Grande Inter' managed to beat Madrid and SL Benfica in their two final successes, with Mazzola remembering clearly the matches against "great players" such as Alfredo di Stéfano and Eusébio. The resulting celebrations left an even deeper impression. "Fantastic – cars everywhere, it was very nice, perhaps the first time it was celebrated that way. It was the first time people came to the airport, came into the areas they weren't allowed to – just fantastic."
Forty-five years have passed, yet Mazzola, who also scored in the 2-1 final loss to Celtic FC in 1967 and played in the 2-0 defeat by AFC Ajax in 1972, thinks the time is ripe for the blue-and-black half of Milan to revel in European glory once again. "Inter have been close to the semi-finals or even final, but even now, when you say 45 years, it doesn't seem that long ago – maybe because I experienced it and it seems closer to me. But the number 45, it's four and five and that makes nine, and nine is a lucky number at least for me, so it could be a good year."
uefa.com
UEFA Champions League finalists FC Bayern München have appealed against the three-match ban handed to winger Franck Ribéry, with the appeal hearing set for 5 May.
FC Bayern München have lodged an appeal with UEFA against the decision by the UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body to suspend Franck Ribéry for three UEFA club competition matches for assault.
The appeal hearing will take place next Wednesday, 5 May.
Ribéry received a red card for serious foul play in the UEFA Champions League semi-final first leg against Olympique Lyonnais in Munich on 21 April.