Inter Milan and Barcelona produced a legendary semi-final – but where does it rank in Champions League history? | OneFootball

After a game that pushed emotions to extremes, an exhausted Simone Inzaghi became philosophical.

“Yes, we suffered,” the Inter Milan manager said, before hailing his side’s jaw-dropping 7-6 aggregate win over Barcelona. “But there is no final without a little suffering.”

That’s at least for anyone on the pitch, or those with an emotional connection to either club. For everyone else, such exertions just created full enjoyment; total spectacle; complete glory… an “epic” as the Spanish newspapers proclaimed.

This was just one of those matches - let alone the entire tie - that is so immersive it becomes a celebration of the pure game as it’s played, no matter everything else around it. This is why football is the most popular sport in the world. “Que locura” - “what a madness” - a member of the Barcelona contingent could be seen mouthing after four hours of absorbing football.

That’s another way to sum it up. To take Inzaghi’s point and turn it on its head, though, there’s arguably no final that has gone to these extremes. Run through it now. How many truly great Champions League finals have there been over the last few years, or even this millennium? Arguably only 2005.

As for great semi-finals, this is just the latest of a sensational series. There is a crude list of the 10 best in the Champions League era below, but they are heavily open to argument and it could have gone on even longer. Honourable mentions must go to Monaco v Chelsea 2003-04 and Dynamo Kyiv v Bayern Munich 1998-99, let alone Lionel Messi’s masterclass against Bayern Munich in 2014-15.

Champions League semi-finals

Miguel Delaney ranks the greatest ties

10. Tottenham Hotspur 3-3 Ajax, 2018-19

9. Real Madrid 3-4 Juventus, 2002-03

8. Atletico 2-2 Bayern, 2015-16

7. Chelsea 1-1 Barcelona, 2008-09

6. Chelsea 3-2 Barcelona, 2011-12

5. Manchester United 4-3 Juventus, 1998-99

4. Liverpool 4-3 Barca, 2018-19

3. Inter 3-2 Barca, 2009-10

2. Manchester City 4-6 Real Madrid, 2021-22

1. Barca 6-7 Inter, 2024-25

It was said on these pages after the scarcely believable comebacks of 2018-19 that the Champions League at that level was like the best of high-quality prime time TV, with a cinematic quality that producers of that year’s final Game of Thrones - or pretty much any prestige series would envy.

And it was all unscripted. This is why figures like Todd Boehly see future Netflix-style platforms in football, amid constant attempts to try and engineer and perpetually recreate something that is organic and dependent on the build-up of stakes.

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Acerbi celebrates his stoppage time equaliser for Inter (Reuters)

The very stakes are also important as to why the semi-finals are so epic. To continue the theme, it is like the penultimate episode of a series being more explosive than the finale.

There is a rationale for that, amid the emotion of the teams and Inzaghi’s philosophy. With a final, you’re on the stage, so the stakes are felt all too keenly. It is why so many are gripped by tension for the first hour or so.

With the semi-final, you’re on the brink of the stage. It’s almost there but it’s not quite the same. There is less to lose.

Even more importantly, there’s often something to be made up. Second legs have invariably been the superior match because they are set up by the first, creating incentive. From there, as well as actual stadiums filled with fans rather than corporates, there’s almost this emotional contagion that infuses the action. In some cases, as we saw in 2018-19, the chaos of one semi-final tie can directly influence the feeling of the next.

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Lamine Yamal responds to defeat against Inter (AP)

Put short, teams feel they may as well just go for it. That could be seen in cancer survivor Francesco Acerbi’s 93rd-minute equaliser. There was abandon, that was a contrast to the late angst that could be witnessed in the final minutes of the same team’s last final appearance, in 2022-23.

That rising crescendo also raises another point as to why this semi-final might have been the greatest ever, if you even want to go there.

The truth is it’s hard not to as you dwell on the drama.

All of the semi-finals mentioned above were epics, with incredible moments and passages of play that each form fine arguments as to why they are up there as the greatest ever. There’s Real Madrid’s aura of invincibility against Manchester City, Anfield’s atmosphere against Barcelona, Manchester United’s defiance against Juventus, the sheer tension of two Chelsea v Barcelona semi-finals…

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Simone Inzaghi and his Inter Milan players pulled off a dramatic Champions League semi-final win over Barcelona in 2019 (AP)

One of the many remarkable elements about this semi-final was that it just never let up. There were no lulls, no drop-offs. The closest you could say that it had to one was in the period between Dani Olmo’s soaring header for 2-2 on the night and Raphinha’s fine volley to make it 3-2 when Inter looked done, but that still involved heroic defending; the desperate moments when players are throwing everything into it.

This had everything.

It kept twisting and ratcheting up. Over the full three and a half hours, there were at least 10 dramatic shifts in momentum. Most of them were supreme goals, but not all. In scorelines alone, there was 2-0, 2-2, 3-2, an immediate 3-3, 2-0 again, 2-2, 2-3, the final equaliser and then that winner.

And this wasn’t just pure football drama, of the manner that would be enough to emotionally move you on its own. Like all of the best sporting drama, such spectacle was elevated by the grandest of storylines.

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Tottenham celebrate their gripping comeback against Ajax (AFP via Getty Images)

There was a vintage clash of styles, the different make-ups of the squads, the resurgence of both clubs, journeymen enjoying their day against young talent creating careers, as distilled in the duel between the mercurial teenager Lamine Yamal against the show-stopping 36-year-old Yann Sommer and arguably even a morality tale in terms of the stories behind the scenes at both clubs.

Not even Manchester City v Real Madrid 2022-23 quite went to these lengths. That tie only reached such a height at the end of the second leg.

It's remarkable to think that Barcelona only led for six minutes over all that time, and three of those were injury time before Acerbi's equaliser. You could argue that they didn't deserve to win. But that absurd high line created so much high drama.

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Real Madrid celebrate scoring their third goal against Man City in 2022 (Getty Images)

Hansi Flick got a lot wrong but one thing right. “Tonight when they arrive home and look in the mirror, they can be very proud," he said of his team.

If you were to have one absurd quibble amid something close to sporting perfection, it was that there was no final, final crescendo, that last big moment in extra-time. We’d already been spoiled with a stoppage-time equaliser… and then some.

And that’s kind of the point.

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Fernando Torres of Chelsea lays on the pitch celebrating with his teammates in 2012 (Getty Images)

You can’t lay this out like a script. It’s spontaneous sport that can only organically evolve out of what has come before. And there is little like the elements involved in a Champions League semi-final. This may have surpassed them all. We didn't suffer. We just enjoyed.