•Pep's team selection was peculiar as he's repeated in other UCL games since
-Bedrock of Barca success as reigning Champions of Europe & run to the semis this season was based on a 4-3-3 - Henry-Messi (false 9)-Eto'o then Pedro/Iniesta-Ibra-Messi
- composition of the midfield 3 was key - alongside Sneijder who had 9 G/A in 11 UCL starts that season, he played 2 pure ball-winners in Motta & Cambiasso
-Eto'o (having swapped in a deal with Ibra plus moeny between the two clubs the previous summer - another sub-plot) was used on the right wing
•At the start,Inter's right flank of Eto'o+Maicon struggled defensively - Maxwell occupied one with constant runs down the left,the other often had no player to track but needed to react to Messi drifting from his 10 position or Keita combining down the left
- Eto'o dropped deeper on the right to help Maicon deal with the dual threat of Keita/Messi's runs on the left & Maxwell's overlaps
Post-game Mou said: "The moment to hurt them was in attacking transition when we recover the ball"
There were many elements to this:
•First Pandev whose starting position when Inter won the ball was often deeper to track the marauding Alves who racked up 15 assists that season
-the static nature of Ibra's performance was very clear
-whilst Milito often dropped deep to connect midfield to attack or made runs into wide channels, Ibra did neither & rarely interchanged positions with Pedro/Messi
-Barca made 29 crosses - just 4 were accurate. They made 23.6 crosses per game in the knockout stages that season
-in 2008/09,it's no coincidence that Barca also won the UCL with a more mobile front 3 of Henry-Messi (false 9 again)-Eto'o
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