But Inter, having been eliminated from the Champions League, no

Football

On Tuesday evening, two more Champions League quarter-finalists were determined. They were Bayern and Marseille. The Munich team easily compensated for the defeat to Basel (0:1) in the first match, scoring seven unanswered goals against the Swiss in the return match. But the French, who beat Inter at home 1:0, retained their advantage: a loss at San Siro with an acceptable score of 1:2 brought them into the next round of the play-offs.

Before the return matches of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League, the two finalists of the main European Cup of 2010 - Inter and Bayern - were in the same position. Both favorites lost on the road to teams that were rated significantly lower - Marseille and Basel. Moreover, with the same score - 0:1, which forced the Italians and Germans to attack in the return matches. In essence, the game plan for Inter and Bayern was similar: to stun the opponent with the initial onslaught, score an early goal and, if possible, build on the success so as not to bring the matter to extra time, and even less so to a penalty shootout. The only difference is that Bayern managed to methodically fulfill all the points of the plan, while Inter did not.

The Germans were unstoppable. Knowing full well that in Munich Basel should not be given the slightest chance to catch on to the game (the Swiss did not suffer a single away defeat in this Champions League, even from Manchester United and Benfica), Bayern attacked from the first minutes the gate of the unfortunate Jan Sommer. A heap of attacks crushed the fragile defensive formations of the Swiss in a matter of minutes. The situation for the guests was complicated by the fact that the Basel players did not know where to expect a threat from next: they were constantly tormented from the flanks by the tireless Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben, in the center the defense was rammed by the huge Mario Gomez, who, like faithful squires, was served by Thomas Müller and Tony Cross.

Basel missed the first shot already in the tenth minute - its defense missed Robben's signature shift from the flank to the central zone. For the next half hour, the Swiss licked their wounds and fought back chaotically, maintaining a semblance of intrigue. But even before the end of the first half, everything became clear to them: Bayern went into the break with a more than comfortable lead - 3:0. As Basel head coach Heiko Vogel admitted after the match, it was after the third goal he missed that he realized that it was all over. The specialist’s premonition did not deceive: the second half of the meeting turned into a beating of his players. In total, the innocent Yann Sommer scored seven goals, four of which were scored by Mario Gomez. The German forward could well have sent five goals into the net (then he would have repeated the achievement of Lionel Messi, who tore apart Bayer a week earlier), but in the last episode Arjen Robben was clearly greedy. The Dutchman, being in front of an empty goal, chose to hit it himself rather than make a pass to Gomez. However, the Bayern striker was hardly upset, because he became the first German to score four goals in one Champions League match. Bayern, having scored seven unanswered goals against Basel, won the biggest victory in the play-offs of the main European Cup.

For Inter, things didn't turn out so well. Unlike the Munich team, the Milanese failed in their blitzkrieg. But there was an excellent chance to score a quick goal: in the seventh minute, Wesley Sneijder shot at Steve Mandand's goal from seven meters away, but the Marseille goalkeeper, already lying on the lawn, managed to throw out his hand at the last moment and hit the ball. Then the Milanese ruined several promising attacks, and the match got out of their control. The scenario of the match completely suited “Marseille”, which very confidently held all-round defense. They managed to break through only a quarter of an hour before the end of the match: in the chaos in the penalty area, Inter forward Diego Milito literally snatched the ball from his opponents and hit Mandanda with a shot from his toe.

By all indications, this was a turning point. The hosts' fierce assault was finally crowned with success. San Siro was packed to capacity and it seemed that the worst for Inter was over. However, in added time to the second half, the emboldened Milanese fans experienced a terrible tragedy. A banal clearance from the Marseille goal unexpectedly turned into a goal: the ball, fired strongly by Mandanda, flew all the way to the Milan penalty area, where it was picked up by Brandan, who won the fight against two Inter defenders. The Brazilian hit without looking, relying mainly on his strength, and was right - the ball slipped under Julio Cesar. Alas, the second shot on target at Inter during the entire match turned out to be fatal. After that, nothing mattered anymore. Even Giampaolo Pazzini's penalty goal, which brought the Italian club a Pyrrhic victory.

Petr Kuznetsov

Bayern fulfilled the plan