"Beating Barcelona is the greatest moment of my career"

Murinho: "Beating Barcelona is the greatest moment of my career"

This statement is so powerful to describe the passion of the game. Think with me: Murinho won two English leagues with Chelsea, one Italian League with Inter, UEFA cup with Porto, and a remarkable Champion League victory in 2004 with Porto beating Monaco 3-0 in the final.

So, beating Barca at a semi final in 2010 is more important to Murinho than winning the Champion League with a small home team (Porto when compared to the giant clubs).

He adds: " "For the players, me, the fans, it's the greatest. We were a team of heroes. We sweated blood."

and ironically "I love Inter and the supporters, but not Italian football. I respect it, but I don't love it."

I say 'ironically', because yesterday victory was by Portugese manager, Brazilian defenders and keeper, but, purely, an Italian special way. I was almost watching 2006 World Cup final.

The game had a single wonderful goal, a goal to watch again and again and again:



Few comments from my side:

- Big boost to the defensive tactics:
A tactical analysis football site described Inter victory as "one of the great defensive performances in recent footballing history." This game reminded me so much of 2006 WC or final, or Greek in Euro 2004 when defence had its final word. It is a boost to the boring side of football. I must add that Inter plays very beautiful that watching him in the quarter final reminded me of Brazil 1994 golden team. Very balanced team with big balance between defence and attack, and individual skills vs. team work.

Let's look into the figures:
Barca had 75% possession of the ball vs. 25% for Inter.
Barca had 12 shots on goals vs. 1 for Inter.
However, what it counts only this stats:
Barca 2 goals Inter 3 goals for goals aggregates, each got three points.

- Barca lost it from the first leg:
I think the semi-final was almost over from the first leg. Going two goals down, against a giant team, and in a semi-final of CL, is almost impossible to recover. Yes, they were very close to do it, but one thing is to be very close, and it is totally different thing to really make it happen.

I think Gardiola did big mistake was when he played very open game in the first leg. He let go the game. I could not believe my eyes that day. I would expect at least a tight defence after scoring the initial goal.

- Barca most critical week for the La Liga
Look at this:
- Wed 28 April: Barca faced one of toughest games every with big upset.
- Sat 1 May: only three days later, they will travel to face Villareal in Vila Real
- Tue 4 May: only three days later, they must face Tenerife in Camp Nou
- Sun 9 May: Barca need to travel to Sevilla in a very tough game

Within a span of six days, Barca will be playing three critical games, and the fourth one in only 10 days.
This is more than crazy. I think this type of schedules are destructive to the game.

- Brazilian mythes
Since about 15 years (early 1990s) and I debate with friends that Brazilian stereotyping that they don't play good defence, they don't have good keeper and they are not strong physically is just a myth.

Yesterday, was one of big proofs:
Inter introduced not just a world class, but a history class defensive game, thanks to three key players, Lucio, Maicon and the keeper Julio Caeasar, all of them are Brazilians.

When Brazil beat England in Qatar last November Capello said that in every single tackle on the game, Brazilians won the tackle physically, England must focus on strengthening their bodies.

Brazilians weak bodies and fragile defence is part of the past.