Inter Milan Vs Barcelona [4-3] Champions League Semi-Final Second Leg 2024/2025 – Tactical Analysis

Usually, the games in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals don’t offer a lot of highlights or goals.

This year, we got a tie that changed things up massively from start to finish.

Inter Milan and Barcelona came to San Siro after an incredible 3-3 draw at Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys a week ago.

Both teams scored beautiful goals, showed off their world-class players, and showed out on the biggest stage possible.

For Inter Milan, recent weeks have not been too kind.

Not only did they lose a couple of players to injury, like Benjamin Pavard, but they also lost three games in a row in the league.

Therefore, their lead over SSC Napoli has narrowed, and they currently only sit in second place.

However, Simone Inzaghi and his men are returning to the UEFA Champions League final after losing to Manchester City in 2023.

Hansi Flick and his Barcelona side are still leading La Liga and are the big favourites to win the Spanish top flight this season.

Unlike Inter, FC Barcelona have not been to a Champions League final in the last couple of years and wanted to change that narrative.

Still, the Blaugrana were not necessarily happy about the first leg.

While they managed to play good football and come back from an early 0-2 deficit, not winning their home game really was not what the Catalans wanted to see.

In this tactical analysis and post-match analysis, we will examine the second leg of Inter Milan Vs Barcelona.

We will examine the tactics the two coaches used after a week of preparation, which players and positions were key to success, and how the game was even greater than last week’s.

Inter Milan Vs Barcelona Lineups & Formations

Looking at Inter, we don’t need to spend a lot of time examining the personnel decisions for this game.

Simone Inzaghi trusted his usual starting XI with just one major change due to Pavard’s injury.

Yann Sommer started in goal with three centre-backs in front of him: Alessandro Bastoni on the left, Francesco Acerbi in the centre and Yann Aurel Bisseck on the right.

Once again, the two wing-backs were Federico Dimarco on the left side and Denzel Dumfries, Inter’s MVP from the first game, on the right-hand side.

In midfield, Hakan Çalhanoğlu played as the holding midfielder, with Nicolò Barella and Henrikh Mkhitaryan as the two central midfielders next to him.

In attack, Inzaghi was lucky enough for his captain to recover from injury in time for the game.

He once again started the best two-man strike partnership in European football at the moment, with Lautaro Martínez and Marcus Thuram in the centre of attack of their 3-5-2 formation.

Due to injuries, Hansi Flick needed to make changes, but he once again stayed true to his 4-2-3-1 formation.

Wojciech Szczęsny still fills in in goal for Marc-André ter Stegen, with a back four consisting of Gerard Martín as left back, Iñigo Martínez as left centre-half, Pau Cubarsí as right centre-half in the middle, and Eric García filling in at right-back for the injured Jules Koundé.

In midfield, Flick was able to count on his usual double pivot: captain Frenkie de Jong and Spanish international Pedri playing in the central part of the midfield, and Dani Olmo coming into the starting line-up as the attacking midfielder.

In the attack, Flick refused to change after his front-three’s great offensive performance, so Raphinha played as the left winger, Lamine Yamal as the right winger, and Ferrán Torres as the lone striker.

Inter Milan Defending Vs Lamine Yamal

While Inter Milan took an early lead last week, they could not hold onto that and were generally pushed backwards by Barcelona for most of the game.

This week, not a lot changed about that general way of the game.

Hansi Flick’s men were trying to dominate possession and create chances from the get-go to put pressure on the Italian champions, but unlike last week, Inter were able to hold their own against the waves of attack.

Last week, it didn’t even take Barcelona until half-time to get back to level with Inter Milan, and Simone Inzaghi worked out the reasons for that in the last seven days.

Last week, the key player for Flick was definitely Lamine Yamal.

The 17-year-old Spanish winger created opportunity after opportunity for the Blaugrana in the first leg, and Internazionale had no answer in that game.

This week, they changed their approach to defending Yamal, and while there is no way to take a player like him out of the game, Inter contained him way better than last week.

First, they changed the zones where Yamal was allowed to receive the ball.

Compared to the first leg, the Spanish winger had to drop much deeper to collect his teammates’ passes and was, therefore, further away from the goal.

Dimarco was also more aggressive this week, constantly attacking the passes to Yamal and getting into duels early after he receives the ball to prevent him from orienting himself and forcing him into quick decisions.

Yamal still showed why he is the biggest talent in world football right now, but even when he showed his individual brilliance and got past the first pressing attempt and into the final third, Inter had answers.

To contain Yamal, Dimarco was never left alone.

Mkhitaryan, who played as the left central midfielder, always moved to the wing or the half-space to double Yamal and prevent him from cutting inside and getting on his strong left foot.

While Yamal had his moments later on in the game, Inter Milan managed to nearly shut him down in the first 45 minutes of the game.

Another factor for that was them not having to respect García as an attacking threat.

While García has his qualities, he usually plays better as a centre-back.

As shown in the picture above, Dimarco only focuses on Yamal and pretty much ignores the right-back because he knows he can easily close him out with his advantage in pace.

Even if he can’t, García is not a huge threat in the box.

Simone Inzaghi Pressing & Counterpressing Tactics

Another thing Inter did really well was their counter-press.

Last week, Inzaghi’s men were often pushed back into their own half for longer periods of time and had to cover huge distances if they wanted to counterattack, but this week, they were able to get multiple high regains with their counter-press.

In the 20th minute of the game, Inter were able to push Barcelona into their box and force three corners in a row by winning the second balls around the box.

In hindsight, this should have been a bigger warning sign for Flick’s midfielders.

Shortly after, we got the situation in the picture above.

It’s in the DNA of FC Barcelona not to play long balls, so they were trying to find solutions with short passes.

Olmo dropped back to receive the ball in this situation after an interception of a long ball and received the ball in a half-open stance.

Instead of just playing it on, Olmo tried to control the ball here, and Dimarco was just waiting for that to happen.

The Italian left-back sprinted to the centre of the field, realising that Olmo had no clue what was happening in his back and was able to poke away the ball from the Spanish midfielder.

Barcelona’s defensive line is now in disarray; they do not hold the same depth here and still try to keep Martínez in an offside position, but Dumfries is making a perfectly timed run from a deeper position into the gap between the centre-backs.

Martínez and Cubarsí are trying to get to the same depth and miss out on the open runner, allowing Dimarco to play a through ball towards Dumfries, who just had to square the ball to his skipper, who then gave the Nerazurri the lead at home.

The same thing happened later on: Inter won the ball right at the halfway line, and the Barcelona backline struggled with the decision, allowing Martínez to receive the through ball.

This led to Cubarsí causing a penalty that doubled Inter Milan’s lead.

With their good deep block and this aggressive counter-press, Inzaghi gave his team control over the game without controlling possession.

Even in phases where Blaugrana was dominating them and pushing them back into their own half, Inter always knew what they had to do to hurt Flick’s men and kept their composure.

Football players are humans, too, and it was really interesting to see the entire Inter Milan team pushing themselves even in harsh situations and staying in the right headspace.

The entire team showed amazing resilience.

They believed in their chance, and when they had opportunities to capitalise, they took them.

In the first half, Barcelona dominated possession, but Inter dominated the game.

Barcelona Attacking The Box

For Hansi Flick and FC Barcelona, the situation had turned dire.

After not winning at home, they trailed 2-0 at San Siro, which had an electric atmosphere Tuesday night.

They now only had 45 minutes to find solutions against the way Inter shut them down.

If anyone thought they’d just give up, they’d be mistaken.

Barcelona had two major problems in the first half:

The first problem was that they were able to control possession, but they never were able to create big chances at all.

The second problem was that their counter-press was not working at all, and Inter was able to counterattack against their high backline multiple times.

Flick fixed the second problem by simply committing his midfielders to way more aggressive positions around the box.

With Inter trying to hold onto their lead and dropping into more defensive positions, the German manager’s plan worked rather well.

Flick still had some trouble creating chances.

Lamine Yamal was still getting doubles at every chance Inter Milan got, and Raphinha was pushing into the centre of the field a lot, but just ran into the deep block of Inter Milan a lot.

Both superstars struggled for a long time in this game, and Dani Olmo was not much of a difference-maker in the first half as well.

But with Raphinha pushing inwards, Martín on the left often found himself in a lot of space.

Like García on the right, Inter did not respect Martín as an attacking threat.

The young Spanish left-back just lacks the pace and dribbling ability to be a difference-maker at that level, and he was occupied trying to defend Dumfries for the majority of the game anyway.

Unfortunately for Inzaghi and his defenders, Martín is a surprisingly good crosser, and Barcelona used that in the second half.

Inter Milan’s deep block usually works really well for them, with their three centre-backs covering the edge of the six-yard box and the two wing-backs helping out if needed.

They just have one weakness: They often shift to the near side too aggressively, opening up space at the far-sided post.

As we can see in the picture above, Bisseck moves out of the block, and therefore, Dimarco on the far side is also pushing inwards.

Bisseck is able to block the first cross of Martín, but the left-back stays in possession and now sees the problem for Inter Milan.

Eric García is completely unoccupied and just makes a run into the box from the far side, receiving the chipped cross and finishing it off to get Barcelona back into the game.

Taking a look at the second goal, the same problem for Inter.

After they block the initial free kick, Barcelona retain possession and switch play to Martín, who crosses it out of the half-field.

The Inter Milan centre-backs are three against two in the centre, but their shape is way too narrow, and the players at the far post are not reacting quickly enough.

This enables Olmo to run into the box, where he receives the ball at the far-sided post and heads it in to get the Blaugrana back to level.

It’s the same mistake and flaw in Simone Inzaghi’s system.

Punished twice in five minutes, Internazionale once again threw away a 2-0 lead in this matchup.

Barcelona Counter-Pressing & Counter-Countering

From there on, the Catalans were in full control of the game.

Inter Milan’s high-intensity play style took its toll, and especially their midfielders started to feel it, completely losing grip of the game.

Still, they threw themselves into every ball with all they had and managed to keep the draw for another 25 minutes.

The team even managed to get a bit of control back after Inzaghi substituted two of his midfielders, but in the end, they struggled to keep up with the Blaugrana’s pace.

While Inter counter-attacked heavily in the first half, Flick managed to get his players into better positions in the counter-press. In the situation above, Pedri was able to defend forward and win the ball back.

Olmo then squared the ball back into the path of the moving Pedri, who managed to work himself into open space.

Inter Milan’s approach heavily encourages the wing-backs to move forward after winning the ball.

Dumfries made these types of runs all game long, and they created opportunities for his team.

However, when they lost the ball against the counter-press, it exposed space.

Looking at Raphinha at the far side, he is now open in the back of an occupied centre-back, already realising the situation before anyone else.

Pedri now dribbles inward, and with Dumfries pushing up the field, the space on the far side is completely exposed.

The Spanish midfielder threads the ball through the gap.

Raphinha is clever enough to stay onside, and while his first attempt is blocked, he manages to finish the rebound to give his team the lead late in the game. 

Inter Milan Recovery

The late winner for Barcelona and Hansi Flick getting to the Champions League final in his home country?

Well, it looked that way.

But once again, Inter Milan showed great mental fortitude and believed in themselves.

After Lamine Yamal hit the post, Inter had one final chance to attack, and they took it.

Once again, it was Martín who struggled with his defensive assignment, not being able to intercept the ball and losing the duel to the physical Dumfries (by the way, not a foul in my opinion) whose cross found Acerbi in the box and the Italian centre-back brings Inter back to level in stoppage time.

This goal really came out of nowhere, but so did a couple of goals for Inter in these two games, so we really shouldn’t have been this surprised.

In extra time, things went back to the way they played out in the second half, and Barcelona was putting pressure on Internazionale.

Inzaghi’s men didn’t even try to play out from the back anymore, and Sommer just punted this ball down the field from his own box.

Barcelona were aware of Thuram’s qualities as a target man and double-covered him here, leaving substitutes Mehdi Taremi and Davide Frattesi open.

Therefore, Taremi was now able to enter the aerial duel against the smaller Martín and head the ball behind the backline.

Martín simply lacks the pace to follow Thuram, and Ronald Araújo is forced to move to the wing.

Thuram then absolutely cooks the substituted Barcelona captain on the wing and finds Taremi in the box again, because de Jong just defers his man towards Cubarsí without even looking at his teammate.

Taremi passes the ball to Frattesi, Cubarsí does not close out the midfielder, and the Italian is able to give Inter the lead again in extra time.

Barcelona were trying to get back once again in this tie, but Robert Lewandowski failed to convert a big chance, and Sommer had a magnificent save against Lamine Yamal, ending Barcelona’s dreams of the treble this season.

Conclusion

In the end, just looking at this game, Inter Milan were rather lucky to come back from the late Raphinha goal and then win the game in extra time, even though Simone Inzaghi’s men played a very good first half.

Barcelona’s dream of the treble died in Italy on Tuesday, but they have to look at themselves first.

They had more than enough big chances in the last 75 minutes of this game, but just failed to convert while always being exposed by Inter on the counter.

In general, if you take the lead, that takes you to the final of the UEFA Champions League, this late in the game, you need just to get it done; there is no excuse for them defending this badly in the 94th minute against a team that struggled the entire second half.

Also, Ronald Araújo got subbed on late in the game, and then he was a step late against a 37-year-old centre-back in stoppage time and got fooled by a striker who had just played 100 minutes at high intensity.

It just can’t happen at that level.

That was a horrible individual showing by the Barcelona vice-captain, considering his fitness level.

I am very grateful to have witnessed this semi-final; both games were absolutely fun to watch.

Both teams had a clear plan for advancing, and in the end, details made the difference.

For Inter Milan and Simone Inzaghi, their second final in the Champions League in three years awaits.

Inter Milan will face PSG in the Champions League Final in Munich on May 31, 2025.

With the mental ability and heart this team has shown against top teams like FC Bayern and now FC Barcelona, they do not have to fear Paris Saint-Germain at all.

Will they get their revenge for the 2023 final, or will Paris Saint-Germain finally become champions of Europe?

It definitely will be a game that you cannot turn off before the final whistle is blown.