Inter’s 4-3 Champions League win against Barcelona showed why San Siro is still the best stadium in the world

Milan – The day after one of the best matches in the history of the game, there is still a kind of bewilderment around not only fans who were in San Siro on Tuesday evening, but also everyone who watched the game on TV around the world. The second stage of the UEFA Champions League -and and and finals between Inter and Barcelona showed the essence of this sport, the reason why we all love it. When Francesco Acerbi scored to make it 3-3 and to keep Inter alive, a minute before the last whistle, some of the Inter Home fans had already left the stadium, assuming that the game was over in principle. It was, most emphatically, not. When they heard that the Italian defender scored his very first European goal at the age of 37, they tried to return to their seats. They were not allowed.

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San Siro was electric on Tuesday evening, at one of those determining moments that form the history of the game. Before the game started, you could easily feel the tension among the home fans, knowing that they would witness a match that could define the 2024-25 season from their beloved team. It turned out that they would watch a competition that was quickly seen as one of the best ever, the kind of night that those who are lucky to be in San Siro will remember forever. The biggest match ever played in one of the most historic stadiums in Italy.

San Siro, the home stadium of both Inter and AC Milan, can go into the dusk of his life as a mainstay of Italian football. There are constant conversations to build a new stadium that can be shared by the Milan teams in the same part of their current one. Both fan bases are divided because San Siro was and is still one of the most historic places to attend a football match around the world. San Siro was built in 1929 and in the last century it was the stage of some of the best competitions, because both Milan teams were crucial for the development of sport in the course of the decades. There were some exciting Champions League matches, including those on the way to AC Milan who won the tournament in 2003 and 2007, or in the 1990s where players such as Marco van Basten, Ruud Gullit, Roberto Baggio, Ronaldo and many others became the icons of world football, which became the Italian series a as the most influential series. It is almost impossible to mention all the most memorable matches that were played in this stadium, but there are a few reasons why we can already consider the draw between Inter and Barcelona as one of the best played in this iconic stadium.

Usually, when we refer to the most exciting matches, at least in the modern era of the game, we tend to refer to the biggest comebacks and most unexpected. The obvious example of this is Barcelona against PSG in 2017, the “Remontada” or Liverpool against Barcelona in 2019, AS Roma against Barcelona in the quarterfinals of the 2017-18 edition of the Champions League. More recently, Real Madrid became famous for their comebacks when in 2022 they made three comebacks in the knockout phase against PSG, Chelsea and then Manchester City in their run to the final, which they won against Liverpool in Paris.

Well, the victory of Inter against Barcelona was very different, simply because it was not a comeback.

Over the two legs, the 3-3 draw in the first stage and then the 4-3 home win, it was always an open draw. Inter scored twice before Barcelona saw a comeback. Something similar happened in the second stage, but after the two opening goals of Inter, Barcelona scored three before the late 3-3 goal of Francesco Acerbi that raised everything by pushing the competition into extra time. There was never a feeling that one of the two teams had the game, apart from the last minutes of the second half, making it even better for the people who watched the game from all over the world. Those who were there who could breathe in the air of San Siro on such a special night will never forget the vibrations of the stadium.

In South America there is a saying about the Boca Juniors Home Stadium, La Bombonera: “It doesn’t vibrate, it beats”, referring to the feeling of the stadium moving during the Boca Juniors matches. Well, San Siro was no different on Tuesday. Inter-wing player Federico Dimarco said something very special about this stadium to Sky Italy immediately after the victory of the Nerazzurri and spoke with the former Inter Middelder Esteban Cambiaso, who was standing on the field, the last time Inter Won against Barcelona in the Champions League Semifinals when the Silk then the Side Pepifinals, Tegeninals Tegeninals, counterinals Team: “I heard those other stadiums. San Siro.”