Barcelona visited Inter Milan in the third round of the Champions League group stage with positive reviews from experts. The personnel and form of the Spanish team are all better than the Italian representative.
The situation at Giuseppe Meazza Stadium proved that superiority, when coach Xavi Hernandez's team controlled the ball up to 72%. The Spanish coach arranged a 4-3-3 tactical formation, with Raphinha, Ousmane Dembele, Robert Lewandowski in attack.
On the other side, colleague Simone Inzaghi has the return of Lautaro Martinez in attack. The 3-5-2 formation was used to limit the opponent's space in midfield, but against players with skills and technique, that became meaningless.
But luckily for Inter, it was Barca's possession that helped their team retreat deep into their home field, locking the space in front of the penalty area. The Nerazzurri are satisfied with their counter-attacking tactics.
Barca did not have a chance to shine in the first half. In contrast, Barca's defense was somewhat confused by counter-attacks. In the first half, Barcelona was lucky that the referee did not award a penalty of 11m even after reviewing VAR, the ball touched Eric Garcias hand in the penalty area.
A few minutes later, Joaquin Correa put the ball into the visitors' net but the goal was not counted for offside. For the whole match, Inter had 28% possession but were offside 7 times (Barcelona 0), which was enough to visualize the game.
Not vigilant with previous warning shots, Barcelona unexpectedly took a break with a lead. In the 45+2 minute, Hakan Calhanoglu shot dangerously, causing Marc-Andre ter Stegen to helplessly look at the ball into the net.
Barcelona was forced to attack more intensively in the second half of the match. They also had the ball into the opponent's net in the 65th minute but VAR intervened and determined that the ball touched Ansu Fati's hand before Pedri finished.
VAR continued to not side Barcelona until the end of the match, although the ball touched Denzen Dumfries' hand after a cross from Sergi Roberto, the referee still did not blow 11m after reviewing it through supporting video technology.
Barcelona were pushed down to third in Group C after two consecutive defeats, while Inter have six points, holding second place. Before that, Bayern Munich crushed Viktoria Plzen 5-0 to take the top spot with 9 full points.
Other matches
In the same situation as Barcelona was Atletico Madrid, but the representative of the capital Madrid was even more disappointed when they lost 0-2 at Club Brugge. And while Porto had their first win in this year's group stage, Group B is having significant surprises, as Club Brugge won all 3 matches to take the lead, while Porto, Leverkusen, Atletico all have 3 points.
Liverpool beat Rangers 2-0 to somewhat ease the pressure, while also taking second place in Group A, thanks to Napoli's surprise 6-1 win over Ajax in the Netherlands. The Italian representative also won all 3 matches to take the top spot.
The situation in Group D became more tense after this series of matches. Tottenham held the visitors Frankfurt to a 0-0 draw for both teams to have 4 points, while Marseille did not let Sporting Lisbon win their third consecutive match. The French team won 4-1 to get the first 3 points, while Sporting kept the same score of 6.
