A colossal Lamine Yamal prevents the ghosts from taking over Barça

BarcelonaLamine Yamal is teaching all of us Catalans to put aside our fears, to stop stirring things up, to stop wanting to upset anyone, to stop being overly cautious. Lamine Yamal directly addresses all of us who love Barça, telling us that, with him, anything is possible. That miracles also exist in football, and if Inter thwarts you twice in just 20 minutes on Montjuïc, he'll fix it, and with that team full of homegrown players and a Brazilian destined to fight for the Ballon d'Or, you can turn around finals at Real Madrid and fight for the semifinals no matter how badly they go wrong. The return to Milan next Tuesday will decide how far Hansi Flick's Barça's faith goes.

To Montjuïc, where the legs couldn't reach, the heart reached. The team overcame a 2-0 deficit in the first half and a 3-2 deficit in the second thanks to another colossal performance from Lamine Yamal, in his 100th match, who will forever remain etched in the hearts of Barcelona fans. In a semi-final first leg filled with emotions running high, Lamine Yamal, Ferran, and Sommer, who scored an own goal after a Raphinha shot, neutralized double saves from Thuram and Dumfries, and Szczesny could have done more with two corners.

In Lluís Companys's best tackle of the season, it was a tough start. Being among the four best teams in Europe means facing opponents who come out with a knife between their teeth from the first minute. Both teams demonstrated in a great battle on Montjuïc why they are fighting to be in the final on May 31. The Italians are a team that tricks you, that lets you believe you'll dominate them, that seems to retreat and doesn't want to know anything about the ball until they smell blood and it hits you in the jugular.

Thus came the first blow. When the latecomers hadn't even been able to settle their asses, the Italian team wove a swift play through the weakest link in the defense: Gerard Martín's left flank. Dumfries, one of the Milanese side's most valuable assets, delivered a cross to the near post that Thuram, who arrived at the match feeling like a baby, transformed into a stunning goal with a spurring finish, while Szczesny looked on in disbelief.

Montjuïc reacted with a resounding applause: either to give a shot of optimism to its players or to silence the revelry of the nearly 3,000 Italian fans positioned in the south goal. The team, driven by Lamine Yamal, who had made the legs of the entire crowd tremble by leaving the warm-up early, took the team on his shoulders, and Barça tried to capitalize on one of its best qualities: caring for and loving the ball and intimidating with the shoals. Montjuïc pulsed, Barça bit, and Inter defended. But the Italians once again struck directly at Barça's self-esteem. In one of the few attacks of the first half, they earned a corner that made it 0-2. Acerbi crossed to the far post, and he used his strength to leap and assist the ever-present Dumfries, who this time managed to silence Montjuïc.

Lamine Yamal's stunning goal

The Italians' second goal chilled the Barcelona fans' blood, and they, dejected, needed a few moments to react. It couldn't be, it couldn't be that after reaching this point, the script was so unfair and so painful. It couldn't be that, on returning to the Champions League semifinals more than five years later, the story was like a horror story. The stadium fell into darkness, the ghosts of a decade of eliminations trying to take hold of the fans' souls, until Lamine Yamal declared no, his time had only just begun, and with a stunning goal that shook the foundations of Montjuïc, he brought Barça out of the darkness. The goal brought the team back, not only into the match, but fully into the tie.

Lamine Yamal's impossible goal was a breath of fresh air that made the stadium explode and catapulted a Barça side that had to mourn Kounde's injury. The laws of gravity were in place before Lautaro was injured for Inter.

Barça's equalizer came through Ferran, a relentless fighter, who slotted home a sweet delivery from Raphinha after a beautiful cross from Pedri. The Brazilian, who went from strength to strength, scored a life-saving goal after the break, when Barça were once again punished by a poor clearance from Szczesny on a corner and poor marking from Olmo, which Dumfries converted into a brace.

But Barça wasted no time in responding, also from a corner: a ball passed back that Lamine Yamal let go, and Raphinha's effort bounced off the bar and Sommer before slotting in. The 3-3 scoreline capped an exhilarating first leg of the semifinals in which Barça deserved to win, but the Inter goalkeeper and the post prevented them from doing so in the final minutes.