Inter Milan 0 Barcelona 0:IT SEEMS beyond logic that Zlatan Ibrahimovic should be worth Samuel Eto'o plus the best part of €50 million. Certainly the San Siro majority voiced that opinion, and the noise that greeted every touch by the idiosyncratic Swede was piercing enough to raise the roof of La Scala.
But the moral of the story is perhaps this: it was not Ibrahimovic’s night, but he had chance after chance to script the headlines. He was involved, at the centre of the things.
Eto’o, however, was peripheral. That reveals a lot about the difference between playing for Barcelona and Internazionale – about how much attacking, how much possession, how many touches of the ball come with the territory.
The Italians are playing a game of catch-up on this stage. Barcelona, without being at their most fluent or penetrative, still seemed to exist on a different level. This despite this summer’s imports to Milan, with the heavyweight experience of Lucio and Eto’o now bookending the team, which appeared not to have truly transformed them into the contenders they crave to be.
This was about far more than the reunion of Eto’o and Ibrahimovic, subject of that barely comprehensible swap deal, with their former employers. The enigmatic Swede did, however, threaten to hog the limelight initially. Ibrahimovic, who was whistled like a cartoon villain, demanded attention. The trouble for Inter was that their defence lurched as they struggled to attend to him.
In the sixth minute he caused havoc, picking out Xavi with a fabulous pass. In the seventh he drifted into shooting territory and ballooned his effort over the bar. He smiled wryly.
Inter’s response was passionate but slightly predictable. The three new attacking recruits began to raid, with playmaker Wesley Sneijder pulling the strings intelligently.
But every time Inter began to grow in confidence, Barca produced a searing counter-attack to put the frighteners on them.
Seydou Keita should have scored from Dani Alves’s tuck-back only to squirt his shot wide. Just before half-time Sulley Muntari lingered carelessly on the ball and lost it, enabling Lionel Messi to whiz off to smack the ball goalwards. Julio Cesar beat the chance away and Inter breathed a mighty sigh of relief.
The balancing act, to be robust and yet free enough to express yourself against Europe’s finest, is not something Jose Mourinho could instil overnight, and the pattern continued after the break.
Inter searched for a breakthrough when Sneijder steered narrowly wide, and then felt exposed as Barcelona enjoyed long periods of possession around their box.
Barca’s front line certainly has a different feel to it with Ibrahimovic’s individualism in there instead of the dynamic running and shooting of Eto’o. Messi remains the most dangerous outlet and on a luckier night would have snaffled a goal. At one point he was virtually tackled by Alves, such was the eagerness they both showed to tuck in Thierry Henry’s cross-shot.
Pep Guardiola, the Barcelona manager, was halfway down the touchline to appeal for a penalty when the ball seemed to catch Dejan Stankovic’s forearm. Their desire to beat all-comers, anywhere, anyhow, beats on.
INTER MILAN: Julio Cesar, Maicon, Lucio, Samuel, Chivu, Muntari (Stankovic 62), Motta, Zanetti, Sneijder (Santon 80), Eto’o, Milito (Balotelli 85). Subs not used: Toldo, Cordoba, Vieira, Cambiasso. Booked: Chivu.
BARCELONA: Valdes, Dani Alves, Puyol, Pique, Abidal, Toure Yaya, Xavi, Keita, Messi, Ibrahimovic, Henry (Iniesta 76). Subs not used: Pinto, Marquez, Busquets, Pedrito, Maxwell, Jeffren. Booked: Henry, Toure Yaya.
Referee: Wolfgang Stark (Germany).
