In this series, Jonathan Wilson retells the stories of the five greatest Champions League matches this century. So far, Pep Guardiola's influence over the last decade has been a running theme. Pep features in numbers four and five directly, number three indirectly, and here he is again at number two. This time however, it's all about his opponent – "The Translator" returning to the Nou Camp to haunt Barcelona: Jose Mourinho.
2) Barcelona 1-0 Inter (semi-final second leg, 2010)
If one game over the past 20 years explains everything, it’s this one: Pep Guardiola against Jose Mourinho, possession against pragmatism, an epic meeting of – as many saw it – light and dark, a sulphurous night of exquisite tension and drama.
After Barca’s victory in the 2009 Champions League final, after another season in which they swept all before them domestically, they were overwhelming favourites to become the first side to retain the Champions League since Milan in 1990. But then the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull erupted and spewed an ash-cloud over Europe that prevented plane travel for two crucial days. Barcelona travelled to Milan for the first leg by bus.
Given Barca had developed a habit of failing to win Champions League away games, and given Inter produced a supremely disciplined performance, perhaps Mourinho’s side would have won anyway. But the 16-hour journey didn’t help and Inter deserved their 3-1 victory, even if Dani Alves probably should have had a penalty.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who never fitted in during his year at Barca, was frustrated, feeling Guardiola “had a complex about Mourinho”. The following weekend, after being left on the bench at Villarreal, he screamed at Guardiola in the dressing-room and kicked over a metal skip used to transport kit. Saying nothing, Guardiola picked it up and walked out, as Ibrahimovic put it, “like a little caretaker”. Their fractious relationship had reached a low from which it would never recover.
With the pressure mounting on Barca, Mourinho stirred the pot with practised charm. “We are used,” he said, “to seeing these Barca players throw themselves to the floor a lot.” This was a mind game beyond a mind game, his words aimed less at the Belgian referee Frank De Bleeckere who would take charge of the game than at Barca, hinting at a deviousness and cunning behind the beauty of their football, suggesting they were hypocritical. By full-time he had been proved right.
Mourinho initially named the team that had won the first leg but Goran Pandev was mysteriously injured shortly before kick-off and replaced on the left side of midfield by the Romanian full-back Cristian Chivu. As had always seemed inevitable, his side sat deep. They had been absorbing the Barça pressure well when, with 27 minutes played, Thiago Motta was sent off. Sergio Busquets feigned injury disgracefully, but equally, Motta had already been booked and did thrust a hand into the midfielder’s face. It probably shouldn’t have been a straight red, but neither was his dismissal unwarranted.
On the touchline, Mourinho grinned in a way that seemed to say, “Look how blatant this is.” But on the pitch, his side were galvanised. Samuel Eto’o ended up playing as an auxiliary full-back, Diego Milito as a midfielder. Their commitment and effort were supreme. Inter had just 19 per cent possession but they held their shape and Barca struggled to create chances.
Eventually Pique, sent forward as an emergency striker, broke through with six minutes remaining; one more and Barca would have been through on away goals. It seemed that they’d got it a minute into injury-time as Bojan swept the ball into the roof of the net, but De Bleeckere disallowed it for a handball by Yaya Toure in the build-up. How deliberate it was, whether he could have got out of the way of a Walter Samuel clearance, can be debated endlessly.
So Inter lost 1-0, won on aggregate, and Mourinho set off on delighted charge across the pitch. “It is a style of blood not skill,” he said. “When the moment of leaving everything on the pitch arrives, you don't leave the skill, you leave the blood. We were a team of heroes. We sweated blood.”
As Inter celebrated on the pitch, Barca turned on the sprinklers. Mes que un club? Not a bit of it. The act was small-minded and petty and it served Mourinho’s purposes perfectly. More than that, he had shown that diligence out of possession, with a healthy slice of luck, could thwart Guardiola and Barcelona.
His Inter side went on to beat Bayern, managed by another possession-driven former Barcelona coach in Louis van Gaal, in the Champions League final, and within a few weeks, Mourinho, the man who had toppled Guardiola, had been named manager of Real Madrid and their rivalry entered a new, far more intense, phase.
No 5 – Guardiola's Barcelona humble Man Utd in Rome
No 4 – Ramos and Ronaldo crush Bayern in Bavaria
No 3 – Klopp's Liverpool pull off a miracle against Barca
No 2 – Mourinho loses but proves his point at the Nou Camp
No 1 – Liverpool edge gloriously chaotic classic in Istanbul
