Bundesliga
Liveticker | Schedule | table
The city of Milan welcomes its guests with the most imaginable elegance. The sophistication that radiates the marble of the cathedral, the expensive shops, the chic wherever you look. Milan shines even more when the rest of the country goes through ugly times.
Actually, FC Barcelona should be at home in this city. The still most elegant team in Europe, the team for whom the Italians seem to have invented the term grandezza. But all grace did not help the Catalans on Tuesday night in the Champions League nor to a 1-1 (0-0) at Inter Milan. Because nobility comes to its limits when it is fought with commitment, with wild determination.
There were two game-rules that hit each other hard on this rainy evening in San Siro: the calm, well-arranged passport football of FC Barcelona, characterized by prudence and belief in one's own superiority. And on the other side the lurking raiding football that the Lombards had devised for this evening. Going into the game with the awareness of not being able to keep up in a playful way anyway.
Possession or counterplay? Both!
These are the two principles that are boldly referred to as ball possession and switch football. When they meet, and both teams bring out the good side of playing football in their own way, then a high-class game comes out like in San Siro. Football is rarely fair, it does not have to be, but this time the result was the draw that deserved the game.
The game of the Catalans, the team of coach Ernesto Valverde, always impresses with its impressive, almost intimidating imperturbability. How Sergio Busquets, in the absence of the still missing Lionel Messi, treats the ball with the calm of a coachman, with what equanimity Philippe Coutinho turns his midfield, with what serenity 22-year-old Arthur distributes the balls behind - that's straightforward in which every counterparty can despair.
Then you can see over the abysmal ugly away jerseys of Barça. Salmon pink, and that in the fashion city of Milan. What a sin.
A team like a Hydra
But jersey color or not: When it runs in this team, it's like a multi-headed Hydra. Whenever you think you have defeated them in one place, you will grow a new head somewhere else.
In addition, Ousmane Dembelé acts as a kind of free radical in this collective. He is the only one who tries a lot on his own. This is too stubborn on several occasions, but it breaks through the matrix. FC Barcelona, this machine, will be unpredictable. But sometimes for himself. When Dembelé left the field after 80 minutes, it was his replacement Malcolm who immediately made the lead.
Inter bet against his will. Luciano Spalletti has inoculated his team, not to be frustrated by the playful inferiority. They have their own resources, the swift wingers, who flank one after the other in the sixteenth. Until one finally succeeded and center forward Mauro Incardi did what he does best: emerge from nowhere and score a goal.
This game could have been 0-0, it would not bother anyone. It was a testimony that all the cheers and cheers on one or the other game system are as transient as the fall foliage around San Siro. Neither ball possession football is dead nor is counter-football the measure of all things. Both have their right. And when it hits, it can get really good. She was in San Siro, the beauty of the game.
Football Leaks in Sports Newspapers Daily Topic
There is a lot to read and learn about the depravity of the game these days. The Football Leaks are also an issue in Italy, the two major sports magazines "Gazzetta dello Sport" and "Corriere dello Sport" are taking up the topic daily since the SPIEGEL publications. Nevertheless, Italy may not be the country that shouts the loudest when faced with corruption and influence. The people here are used to much in this regard, whole parties are sunk in the morass, whole football championships turned out to be waste. The Tifosi put it away, you can call that repression.
When one has seen and heard with what euphoria San Siro has celebrated every duel, every streak of inter-professionals, who has felt the fervor with which they sing their hymn "Inno Pazza Inter Amala" to heaven, who trumpets the When Icardi managed to make up for late balancing, who looked into the shiny faces of the fans, blessed that they had at least shown it a bit to the big favorite - all this can be interpreted positively as the great power of football, the also turns out to be more powerful against investors and sheiks.
But he can also take that as a sign that the glorification of big football, which is also the football of the super-rich, will not change much.
Inter Milan - FC Barcelona 1: 1 (0: 0)
0: 1 Malcom (83.)
1: 1 Icardi (87.)
Inter : Handanovic - Vrsaljko, de Vrij, Skriniar, Asamoah - Vecino, Brozovic (85th Martinez) - Politano (81st Candreva), Nainggolan (63rd Borja Valero), Perisic - Icardi. - Coach: Spalletti
Barcelona : ter Stegen - Sergi Roberto, Pique, Lenglet, Jordi Alba - Sergio Busquets - Rakitic, Arthur (74th Vidal) - Dembele (81st Malcom), Luis Suarez, Coutinho
Referee : Marciniak
Yellow cards : Brozovic, Perisic / Rakitic
Spectators : 70,915