Inter Milan beat Barcelona 4-3 in extra time (7-6 on aggregate) to clinch its spot in this year’s UEFA Champions League Final.
It’s Inter’s seventh Champions League final appearance and first since the 2022-23 season, when it lost 1-0 to Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and took home second place.
“It’s unbelievable,” said CBS Sports pundit (and former Italian soccer star) Alessandro Del Piero. “There is a certain name we have in Italy for Inter which is, crazy. Crazy in a good way. Craziness happened tonight, of course in favour of Inter.”
This Champions League semifinal is already being celebrated as a modern classic. Both legs were studded with incredible individual performances, from teenager Lamine Yamal’s wonder goal for Barcelona to Francesco Acerbi’s impossible game-tying goal for Inter Milan — a goal that arrived just 90 seconds before his club was set to be eliminated. The spectacle was great enough to move Guardiola — the last manager to best Inter in a Champions League final — to speak.
“Thanks to these type of games the stadiums will never, ever be empty,” he said. “I can just be grateful for the two semi-finals, because both were unbelievable.”
Inter, as it did in the first leg, began the game with intention. It scored two unanswered goals in the first half: the first a beautiful team movement started by left back Federico Dimarco and finished by World Cup-winning striker Lautaro Martinez, the second a penalty won by Martinez and sunk by team superstar Hakan Calhanoglu.