Barcelona and Inter Milan played a Champions League -similar game for the centuries, before the Serie A Giants sealed their place in the final after 120 exciting minutes. For the second time in just six days, the two European heavyweights played a six-target thriller in normal time, before Inter finally achieved the 7-6 draw in extra time.
After a remarkable first stage that ended 3-3, Inter Milan placed himself in second place in the second and set a lead of two goals for their own fans.
Lautaro Martinez saw an excellent movement at the front of the night after 21 minutes after great play with Dumfries and Federico Dimarco. Then a brilliant VAR intervention before the break saw that the hosts got a penalty when Pau Cubarsi Martinez up.
Hakan Calhanoglu shot on the spot kick to give the hosts an impressive lead in the night and in the draw. But as they did in the first meeting, Barcelona roared back and scored three second half goals, via Eric Garcia, Dani Olmo and then Raphinha.
The final of those three came over with just two minutes of normal time. Lamine Yamal then had the chance to kill the draw, but saw his stop-time effort return from the post.
He was immediately made to Rue that accident then experienced defender Francesco Acerbi made himself the most unlikely heroes and scored an equalizer of 93rd minutes to send the draw to extra time. And Davide Fratteni then put Inter at night at the front and up to nine minutes in the extra 30.
That goal – the 13th of the draw – turned out to be the decisive, but only after some Yann Sommer Heroics Yamal denied in the last minutes.
Alan Shearer who works as a commentator about the reporting of Amazon Prime, perhaps the drama summarized the best. “Thank you Inter Milan and thanks Barcelona for providing incredible entertainment and two great football matches.
“What we have seen has been something very special.”
Inter now plays Arsenal of Paris Saint-Germain in the Allianz Arena on 31 May. The French side has a slender advantage of one goal prior to the second of Wednesday evening in the Parc des Princes.
But it will certainly not be as dramatic as this classic of all time. Interster Denzel Dumfries said: “It was a crazy competition, we fought to the end and very proud of how we fought.”
Martinez said: “We want to go there and win it, we will ensure that we go there and bring Inter to the top.”