The best Big/Bigger Cup semi-final of all time? That’s the sort of recency bias-based chat that would normally have the Daily rounding up all the young football heads to watch Bayern v Red Star Belgrade on VHS over a cool glass of turnip juice. ButInter 4-3 Barcelona(aet, 7-6 on agg) really might be the one. In recent years, we’ve seen incredible comebacks (Liverpool v Barça), goals galore (Roma v Liverpool), dramatic late plot twists (Spurs v Ajax,Real Madrid v Manchester City). Still, nothing quite like this, a game where even the eye-watering, parenthesised final score doesn’t tell the whole story.
This was a seven-goal thriller where one of the keepers, Inter’s Yann Sommer, was man of the match. Yep. The veteran Swiss stopper repeatedly denied Barça schoolboy Lamine Yamal, 12, like a pensioner protecting his greenhouse from errant footballs flying over the fence. Sommer is one of several septuagenarians in Simone Inzaghi’s squad, a battle-hardened unit held together by bandages, tattoo ink and a collective refusal to lose. After conceding just one goal (and scoring 11) in their eight league phase games, Inter have found a way to outscore Bayern and Barça (total Bigger Cup goals this season: 43) across four knockout bouts of Keeganesque artillery fire.
While many great two-legged ties are defined by a dramatic comeback, Barcelona managed two in this semi-final and still came up short. Inter, the oldest team in this year’s Bigger Cup, tried and failed in both legs to build up a buffer big enough to keep Hansi Flick’s impudent strutters at bay. When Raphinha bundled the ball home on the rebound in a smoke-filled San Siro in the 87th minute – putting Barça ahead in the tie for the first time – the collective vibe from the Inter defence was one of weary acceptance. Yet five minutes later – during which the relentless Lamine Yamal also hit the post – one of their number, Francesco Acerbi, 78, was arriving at the near post like prime Zlatan, slamming the ball into the roof of the net and ripping off not one, but two shirts in celebration.
Extra time was, by the insane standards set in the previous 180 minutes, a little short on goalmouth action – but when the moment came, it was Inter who seized it. More specifically it was Davide Frattesi, a midfielder with more than 100 Serie B appearances to his name, who stepped off the bench to deliver the fatal blow. Set up by Marcus Thuram – whose backheeled goal inside 30 seconds in Barcelona now seems a lifetime ago – Frattesi shaped to shoot, paused, and then rifled the ball into the far corner. Why the hesitation? “Maybe I was thinking if I don’t score here, I’m [effed],” Frattesi confessed afterwards – also revealing that his eye-popping Tardellian celebration was of such intensity that he almost passed out.
Before Inter faced Bayern in Munich, Frattesi had scored one Big/Bigger Cup career goal. He has added two more, both of huge significance in leading his team back to the Allianz Arena for the final. He was not on many pundits’ long lists of potential game-changers when the knockouts began – but that rather sums up Inzaghi’s mentality monsters. On paper, a rag-tag collective of has-beens, never-quite-weres, grizzled mercenaries and creaking centre-backs. On the pitch, though, they might just be the best team in Europe.
Join Rob Smyth at 8pm BST for live updates on PSG 3-1 Arsenal (4-1 agg) in their Bigger Cup semi-final second leg.
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