FOOTBALL BETTING: Inter Milan sneaked through despite losing to Barcelona at the Nou Camp and now meet, and beat, Bayern Munich in the final. Compare Champion’s League Final odds.
&campaignJose Mourinho described the two-legged victory over holders Barcelona as “the greatest moment of my career”. It is perhaps an interesting commentary on modern football that, despite winning the trophy with underdogs Porto, Mourinho holds a 1-0 loss as the pinnacle of football management. However, a one goal defeat was enough to win on aggregate in, admittedly, a very defensively assured display.
Inter will contest a European Cup Final for the first time since 1972 and they will face Bayern Munich who were stylishly victorious against Lyon on Tuesday. Despite Munich’s emphatic semi final victory, spurred on by Olic, the Germans are 12/5 with Coral to lift the cup in 90 minutes.
The way Inter Milan went about knocking Barcelona out was admirable, 888sport have 5/4 about them to win in 90 mins on the 22nd of May.
The final is only one game though and has a very different nature to a two-legged tactical duel. This greatly increases Bayern’s chances of being in the game, an early goal or a freak occurrence, for example, will have much more impact. However, the manner in which Inter have conducted themselves throughout the tournament would strongly suggest that they can dominate Bayern from start to finish. Inter’s defensive display might indicate that the final will be low scoring but this is the first game in seven that Inter have failed to net. Coupled with the fact that Munich have scored 17 in 8 games, over 1.5 goals at 15/8 (Paddy Power) is a reasonable bet. Perhaps William Hill’s 21/10 about both teams scoring might also be tempting.
It is still 3 weeks until the final and both teams are contesting their respective titles, making it difficult to predict who will play, but Olic and Sneijder will be key men on the night.
