In The Zone: Giovanni van Bronckhorst analyses Barcelona vs Inter thriller
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Article summary
UEFA technical observer Giovanni van Bronckhorst gives his verdict on one of the games of the season as Barcelona and Inter drew a pulsating UEFA Champions League semi-final first leg 3-3.
Article top media content
Article body
"It was a fantastic match for everyone who loves football." You would struggle to find anyone willing to dispute Barcelona coach Hansi Flick's description of Wednesday's UEFA Champions League semi-final first leg between Barcelona and Inter, which ended 3-3. After all, between them they gave us a night marked by magnificent goals, momentum shifts and the mesmerising footwork of Barcelona teenager Lamine Yamal.
In the following analysis, brought to you by FedEx, we will review three of those goals and explore several key tactical and technical points identified by UEFA technical observer Giovanni van Bronckhorst.
Thuram flicks the switch
The match started with the fastest goal in a Champions League semi-final, scored by Marcus Thuram after 30 seconds. The finish is "an amazing touch" – to quote Inter's other scorer, Denzel Dumfries – yet it is worth also considering the build-up in which centre-back Alessandro Bastoni plays long to the front two, with Lautaro Martínez winning the first ball and Thuram the second before Nicolò Barella sends Dumfries advancing into space down the right.
As Van Bronckhorst will elaborate on in the coaching section below, Inter would change their approach at half-time and the speed with which they get players forward in this clip – see Federico Dimarco’s run to the back post – became all the more apparent as their threat from open play grew in the second half.
"They are so strong and so fast," said Van Bronckhorst. "It looked like every through ball was dangerous. That is the flipside of the high line from Barcelona – if you have a team who can decode that then you can have problems."
Yamal shows his 'genius'
"I try to enjoy it, that’s the secret," Yamal told CBS Sports after producing a scintillating performance on his 100th appearance for Barcelona. He was not the only one to enjoy it, with Inter coach Simone Inzaghi moved to assert: "I think Yamal is the kind of talent that comes along every 50 years and to see him up close really impressed me."
Despite Inter doubling and even tripling up on him at times, he made things happen, striking the crossbar twice and scoring a magnificent seventh goal of this Champions League campaign, which is the focus of the video above.
The goal got Barcelona back into the game at 1-2 and the lead-up shows Yamal’s close ball control as he wrongfoots Henrikh Mkhitaryan, running at the experienced Armenian, dropping his shoulder one way and going the other, his explosive pace leaving Mkhitaryan trailing in his wake. Not surprisingly he was the player with most penalty-box entries with the ball (13) and, along with Pedri, had the most 1v1s in the opposition half (13 each).
The detail of his shot is impressive too: the back-lift is minimal yet he summons the power and accuracy to exploit a gap against a defence which, prior to arriving in Barcelona, had the competition’s best goals-against record (just four conceded).
His admiring coach Flick declared afterwards: "He’s special. I’ve said it before, but he’s a genius. When I’m watching from the outside, you see things, but when you watch back on video, it’s incredible the detail of what he does. What he showed today is what we want from him and what we need from him. In the big matches, he shows up." And yes, he is still only 17.
Yamal's night in numbers
The Barcelona winger was 1st ranked for:
Line-breaking carries – 7
Penalty-box entries with the ball – 13
Passes into the box – 16
Dumfries underlines set-piece threat
Inter scored two goals from corners, both finished off by Dumfries. The first of them, featured in this third video, was a scissor kick as Dumfries connected with Francesco Acerbi's header from Dimarco’s corner. "It was a great corner from Dimarco," the scorer told TNT Sports. "We won the duel and I was in the right place."
With two goals and an assist (not to forget the ball for Mkhitaryan’s disallowed second-half strike), Dumfries earned the Player of the Match award and praise from Van Bronckhorst for "his stamina and speed [which] created a lot of problems for Barcelona".
Van Bronckhorst also applauded Inter for their overall set-piece threat which had previously brought two goals against Bayern in the previous round. "They have good takers and very strong headers, people with the physical [attributes]." Flick concurred, saying: "When you see how tall they are, it’s a little bit different than our team but we have to defend it better."
Van Bronckhorst's coaching reflections
Amid the many thrills, this was a game which demonstrated that a top-level football match is made up of various parts. For UEFA's Technical Observer Group, the first half offered an excellent example of how to break down a team defending deep. The contest then turned after the restart when Inter began showing the bravery to play from the back.
"We wanted to play and press higher up the pitch," explained Inzaghi and, in this concluding section, Van Bronckhorst, the former Barcelona full-back and Feyenoord and Rangers coach, will shed further light on that adjustment before giving a final reflection on Yamal’s dazzling night’s work.
Van Bronckhorst on Inter's brave approach
"In the second half, they tried to play more through the lines instead of over the line and that caused Barcelona a lot of problems. When they had the ball in the first half, the ball was going forward really quickly, but in the second half they kept possession more instead of playing the first ball high and going with numbers in transition moments. They were brave – there were several moments when they had the ball and had four or five players running forward."
Van Bronckhorst on why Yamal is so hard to stop
"What I like is he goes inside but also outside. If you take my compatriot Arjen Robben, for example, he’d get the ball, come inside and shoot and that was very dangerous, but Yamal has the ability to go outside too. Combine that with his technical ability and his speed, especially in the first few metres which is unbelievable, and that gives him the advantage because it means defenders are always behind him."
More like this
