The 2009/2010 UEFA Champions League Semi Final Pairing pitted the most exciting club in European Football against perennial Italian Under-Achievers Inter Milan.
Jose Mourinho was compelled to concede that his team had already lost the match before it started if possession was the deciding factor.
While both teams had their stars, with Barcelona the far stronger in this regard, it was clear that attention was going to be focused on 2 individuals:
At the end of the 2 legs, the result confirmed the easily imaginable conjecture that Inter pulling an upset in this tie depended on their ability to keep Messi very relatively quiet. Inter clearly achieved this, and Mourinho was able to get his own talented players: Maicon, Schneider, Milito and Etoo, to share in the limelight that would probably have been reserved for El Messi in most situations.
That Inter should have scored at least 2 more goals in the first leg and managed to hold on with a man down in the second (where the officiating seemed skewed against them) underscored what many, including Jose himself, saw as a pure coaches victory, achieved against the best player in the world.
In modern soccer, it does appear that Managers are becoming more important than players.
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