BARCELONA TICKETS v AC MILAN: Barca s Final Fantasy

FC Barcelona stand on the brink of completing a stunning campaign that has seen them win many admirers and give the whole city a lift with their exciting brand of attacking football.
Many pundits wanted this meeting to be the final, but the fact that the meeting between two of Europe’s biggest clubs is over two legs is equally enticing.
Ludovic Giuly’s 57th-minute strike in the San Siro stunned the Italians and appeared to shatter their belief for the remainder of a match that was very even up until that moment.
Ronaldinho was billed as the man to watch and it was his magical pass through the Milan defence that allowed the Corsican-born wideman to nip past Khaka Kaladze and drive the ball past Dida with his left boot. What was most surprising in the opening fixture was how Milan lost control of their game after the goal and a string of poor passes and a lack of discipline saw them fail to mount any real comeback once they were behind.
The Blaugrana were rightly euphoric after their victory, but the squad will know that Milan can perform a lot, lot better and will be prepared when they arrive at Camp Nou. The Italian giants have never lost a Champions League semi final and have appeared in two finals in the last three seasons, so they have the experience to pull this tie around. The difference is that they are up against a side that are desperate to clinch the biggest trophy of all and have the nerve and the ability to go all the way.
In a week that has seen former Barça vice-president, Sandro Rossell release an account of his time at the club, the team have stolen his thunder. Rijkaard, the man that was destined to be axed had the former Nike executive had his way during the Dutchman’s first season in charge at the club, changed the team’s tactics to 4-3-3, according to Rossell, and in doing so turned around the club’s fortunes. Barca can take any criticism these days and brush it off as they look virtually unstoppable. The greatest threat to Barcelona winning the trophy in Paris next months is injuries, which have been arriving at an alarming rate this season. With 21 muscle-related injuries the team have to stay fit and top of things in training, because the strength-in-depth can only go so far. Milan have a great squad also, that enables them to switch and change personnel and Carlo Ancelotti will, undoubtedly, tweak his team for the second leg.
While the pre-match talk was of Andriy Shevchenko and the threat he posed, all great strikers are redundant without a good supply line and Milan only managed to feed their goal machine on the odd occasion in the first game.
Confidence among the supporters must not translate through to the team and make them over confident as they survived a scare against Benfica in the last round when a late effort from the visitors could have seen Rijkaard’s team missing out on this glamour tie. It is not Barca’s style to sit back and defend, bufrjthey proved against Chelsea that they can stifle the best teams and will need to produce a similar performance as Milan will throw everything they have forward in the Camp Nou encounter.