Key events
A big blow for Barcelona. Lamine Yamal has departed the warm-up, gingerly holding his left thigh and groin. He goes down the tunnel looking concerned. He’s not moving too awkwardly, but he might not be risked, with the second leg, a possible final, and a La Liga title-decider against Real Madrid all on the horizon.
That 2010 semi-final between José and Barça. “Ah, to return to the days when the global challenge uppermost in mind was how to correctly pronounce Eyjafjallajökull,” sighs Grant Tennille, all salad days and nostalgic haze. Well, sir, the MBM can help you with that.
How Inter got here. The Italian champions finished fourth in the group stage. Their campaign began with a goalless draw at Manchester City, before chalking up six wins – Red Star Belgrade (h) 4-0, Young Boys (a) 1-0, Arsenal (h) 1-0, RB Leipzig (h) 1-0, Sparta Prague (a) 1-0 and Monaco (h) 3-0 – plus a 1-0 defeat at Bayer Leverkusen. (Five 1-0s and a goalless draw! Helenio Herrera would have been delighted with that sequence of scorelines.) Anyway, Feyenoord were seen off 4-1 on aggregate in the round of 16, and then it was Bayern Munich in the quarters …
How Barcelona got here. The Catalans came second in the mega-group, despite losing their first fixture 2-1 away at Monaco. They went on to beat Young Boys (h) 5-0, Bayern Munich (h) 4-1, Red Star Belgrade (a) 5-2, Brest (h) 3-0, Borussia Dortmund (a) 3-2 and Benfica (a) 5-4, before finally drawing 2-2 at home with Atalanta. Benfica were dispatched 4-1 on aggregate in the round of 16, then Barca faced Dortmund in the quarters, whereupon …
Pre-match entertainment. Here’s Jonathan Liew on the redemption of Raphinha.
Barcelona name the same XI that started the Copa del Rey final. Robert Lewandowski remains absent with a muscle injury.
Internazionale have lost their last three matches without scoring, something that hasn’t happened since February 2012, so it’s no surprise that they’ve made five changes to their starting XI after the 1-0 home defeat to Roma. Marcus Thuram, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Denzel Dumfries, Alessandro Bastoni and Yann Bisseck step up; Davide Frattesi, Marko Arnautović, Carlos Augusto and Matteo Darmian drop to the bench, while Benjamin Pavard misses out after picking up an ankle injury at the weekend. Inter will be delighted to welcome back Thuram: the striker, who has 17 goals in all competitions so far this season, missed all three games of Inter’s blank run.
The teams
Barcelona: Szczesny, Kounde, Cubarsi, Martinez, Gerard, de Jong, Gonzalez, Yamal, Olmo, Raphinha, Torres.
Subs: Pena, Astralaga, Araujo, Gavi, Fati, Torre, Christensen, Lopez, Victor, Garcia, Fort.
Internazionale: Sommer, Bisseck, Acerbi, Bastoni, Dumfries, Barella, Calhanoglu, Mkhitaryan, Dimarco, Lautaro Martinez, Thuram.
Subs: Di Gennaro, Josep Martinez, de Vrij, Zielinski, Arnautovic, Frattesi, Asllani, Carlos Augusto, Darmian, Re Cecconi, Zalewski, Taremi.
Referee: Clément Turpin (France).
VAR: Jérôme Brisard (France).
Preamble
Barcelona are currently high on life. They’re playing some delightful football. They’ve just won the Copa del Rey, they’re four points clear in La Liga with five matches to go, and the only team who can realistically stop them winning a domestic double are in no fit state, currently preoccupied with the throwing of a season-long tanty. And so it’s not much of a leap to suggest the continental treble is very much on. Hansi Flick and Robert Lewandowski have already completed one of these, with Bayern Munich in 2020, so Barca are in possession of the roadmap. It really is on.
Internazionale’s mood is less buoyant. They haven’t won in four, and while that sequence started with the 2-2 draw that saw them squeak past Bayern Munich in the quarters, they’ve since fallen behind Napoli on the Serie A run-in after back-to-back defeats against Bologna and Roma, and been spanked 3-0 in the semi-final of the Coppa Italia by their arch rivals Milan. A season that promised a continental treble of their own is unravelling at pace. They need something tonight.
But all hope for Inter is not lost. Because this semi-final clash will be played under the historical cloud of this …
… so it’s all set up just so. It promises to be great fun, one way or another. Kick-off at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys is at 9pm Barcelona time, 8pm BST. It’s on!
