Inter vs. Barcelona Tactical Analysis

One of the greatest matches of football you'll ever see

Inter vs. Barcelona on Wednesday was:

Barcelona overcame three deficits throughout the two legs, including falling behind 2-0 in both legs. But, it wasn’t enough as Simon Inzaghi’s side is back in the Champions League final for the second time in three years.

Below I will go into the in depth tactical analysis, but if you just want to relive the beautiful chaos that was this match, I don’t blame you.

First Half

Right away you could see Inter trying to take care of Barcelona’s extremely high line. One thing about Barcelona’s high line though is it’s very compact, so the balls out wide to Dumfries, just like the first leg, were there for Inter.

Side note: You can criticize Hansi Flick’s high line all you want, but Barcelona have drawn their opponents offsides 82 times in the Champions League. The next closest is Aston Villa with 34. The drew Inter offsides nine times in this match. Call it whatever you like, it makes football fun.

Inter’s counterpressing was much better here at home than in the first leg. They didn’t just sit back in a low block all match, but instead pressed Barcelona high at times and counterpressed really effectively.

For the match they only forced 22 danger zone losses, but six of them led to a shot including the opening goal from Martinez.

With the addition of Eric Garcia into the squad, as opposed to Jules Kounde, he is someone who is able to push up and over/underlap with Yamal (more on that later), which meant that De Jong would often drop into the back line, leaving Pedri as the single pivot.

So, what was Inter’s solution to deal with Yamal? Well they knew they had to double him, but Hansi Flick wanted to make sure that didn’t happen.

There were a lot of instances like this where Barcelona were trying to overload the right side to allow Yamal to get 1 v 1 against Dimarco.

Inter got competely pinned in for most of the first half as Barcelona was counter pressing at an elite level. Yes, Barcelona can get opened up, but that is only if you beat the first line of pressure. Inter held 30.3%, had a 26.1% field tilt and STILL turned it over in the danger zone 43 times.

It’s also not like Inter was consistently building out of the back either because they were going long from pretty much every goal kick.

This is the first of many backpost crosses from Barcelona. Here Inter doubles Yamal and with Eric Garcia pushing up, look how much space he has to whip in a cross.

Inter took a two goal lead after Martinez was fouled in the box, which led to Çalhanoğlu scoring the penalty.

Second Half

Barcelona got one back looking to overload the back post. As you can see below, they have a 3 v 2 at the back post, Garcia becomes the free man and fires it into the back of the net.

The benefit of playing it to the back post is you get the ball away from two of Inter’s three best aerial winners and force the fullbacks like Dimarco who has a 36% aerial duel win rate this season to defend them.

One of the only times Barcelona were able to hit Inter in transition came right after the Garcia goal. It ended up being a 3 v 2 with Martin finding Garcia for what should have been a tap in.

World class save from Yann Sommer, but how on earth did Garcia not put this in the back of the net? The xG on this chance was 0.87.

Barcelona though leveled things up once again targeting the back post. Inter was scrambling a bit to get into their defensive shape after blocking a couple of crosses after a free kick.

You can see two Inter players miscommunicate, which gives Olmo a free run and it’s 2-2.

Barcelona kept trying to play through Yamal with Garcia making overlapping runs to free up space. Inter continually kept doubling him, but it didn’t matter because he kept dribbling right by both of them.

This kid is insane. Three guys on him, off his back foot from outside the box, and forces Sommer into this incredible save.

Yamal for the match had 14 successful dribbles on 20 attempts and was fouled seven times. For context, Yamal averages five successful dribbles per 90 minutes this season, which is second only to Jeremy Doku with 6.6 per FotMob.

So he basically tripled his average while getting doubled teamed for most of match.

Like I mentioned in the first half, this is a pretty easy way to take advantage of Barcelona’s high line. Overload one side to force them to stay compact and then release the opposite side fullback (Dumfries).

Inter are now able to get a 3 v 2 crashing the box.

Barcelona scored late in what looked like the goal that sealed off a comeback for the ages. It came off yet another danger zone loss from Inter, which allowed Raphinha to find space out wide and ended up scoring off his own rebound.

At this point you have to question Hansi Flick. Why on early was Barcelona trying to press with anyone, knowing that Inter was going to send it long with two and half minutes left in the match?

On what planet should Inter ever have had a 4 v 4 running at Barcelona’s back line? THERE ARE TWO AND HALF MINUTES LEFT!

Brilliant goal, brilliant moment for Inter, brilliant moment for football.

Extra Time

One massive advantage Inter had in this tie was aerial duels and physicality. Both of those were on display for their eventual game winning goal.

They win the aerial duel.

Thuram holds the play up and allows Inter crash the box.

Taremi is able to beat his man to the spot and set up Frattesi for the goal.

Barcelona continued to run their entire attack through Yamal. Even in extra time they were trying overload out wide to avoid Inter doubling him.

Once again, Yamal is ridiculous. Somehow he gets from here

To here (he was able to find Lewandowski with a cross from this position)

Conclusion

I am not sure what to say other than that was awesome. Tactics aside, this tie was probably the best I’ve seen from a drama standpoint since Barcelona’s 6-1 second leg victory over PSG in 2017.

This is the story with Hansi Flick’s Barcelona, their numbers will pop off the page and they pinned Inter in for most of the match. But, once Inter was able to break the first line of pressure, there were gaping holes in transition.

In the end, was Inter fortunate to get through the final? Yes and no. The momentum chart will tell you Barcelona were dominant and they certainly created the higher quality chances from an xG standpoint.

images via FotMob

However, Barcelona’s one fatal flaw did them in.

Lamine Yamal was incredible over these two legs and Inter certainly had no answer on how to properly defend him. But, Simon Inzaghi’s side is through the final and in the end that is the only thing that matters.