Internazionale Main Thread III

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Champions League press reaction: Inter beat Barack Obama to Mars

• Italian press hail Inter after 3-1 win over Barcelona
• 'Barack Obama promised Mars within 30 years. He'll be late'

"We are the martians," declares the front page of this morning's Gazzetta dello Sport, a headline that makes rather more sense when you know they had previously described Barcelona's Lionel Messi in such terms. In the eyes of the Italian press Inter's 3-1 win over Barcelona in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final was, simply put, out of this world.

"Barack Obama promised Mars within 30 years," writes Gazzetta's Luigi Garlando. "He'll be late – Inter disembarked there yesterday. If Barcelona are Martians, [José] Mourinho's team deserve citizenship of the same planet. Inter could yet be outplayed at Camp Nou, even lose and be eliminated, but the truth told by three goals, by the personality and the quality of the Nerazzurri's display will remain: the two worlds are no longer a galaxy apart."

The metaphors were flowing thick and fast and you would only need to turn a single page to find Alberto Cerruti likening Inter's performance to the more topical phenomenon of volcanic eruptions. "This overwhelming Inter covered the great and widely feared Barcelona in black and blue lava," he exclaims. "To reach the end of the line in Madrid, 38 years after their last [European Cup] final, they will need another 90 minutes at Camp Nou, where Barcelona will still hope to get back in the running, repeating the 2-0 of 24 November last year.

"But this is a different Inter, a great Inter capable of winning a sixth consecutive game in the Champions League as has never happened in the past. A team who don't fear anyone, as you see when they go a goal down, because it was from that precise moment that they unleashed all of their rage."

Corriere dello Sport's front page annoints last night's Inter team as "Legendary", while Il Giornale invites its readers to get down on "bended knee" before Mourinho. "Messi? Messi who," asks Riccardo Signori in the same paper. "Instead of him we saw [Diego] Milito, goalscorer and the provider of assists (even if he did waste two chances to get himsellf into the game). We rediscovered the power of Maicon. We confirmed that [Wesley] Sneijder is the man of Providence, Samuel and Julio Cesar those of prudence."

In La Stampa Riccardo Beccantini calls the result "Mourinho's greatest work, the confirmation of how much this team follows him and appreciates his electric personality". Significant column inches are also devoted, as with most other papers, to Mario Balotelli's tantrum at the final whistle, and Paolo Brusorio notes that: "With him it often goes this way: a snowflake becomes a snowball, and a ball becomes an avalanche".

Disappointing as Balotelli's behaviour was, though, that incident does not diminish the achievement. The only thing that could do so at this stage would be failing to go through after such a result, and La Repubblica's Fabrizio Bocca sounds a note of caution under the headline "Rejoice, but don't get big-headed".

"Three-one against Barcelona is an important, almost historic result, which seals Inter's leap up among the great international clubs," writes Bocca. "But it would be stupid to get too carried away with this celebration: the hardest part of the job still has to be done and the final in Madrid still needs to be reached. For Inter it is now certainly not impossible to get there, but for Bacelona it is not impossible to overturn this result."

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Inter Defender Maicon Needs Dental Operation
The Brazilian stopper needs dental surgery, says agent...

Inter defender Maicon needs surgery on his teeth after losing some against Barcelona during the Italians' 3-1 Champions League win on Tuesday night.

The Brazilian was stretchered off after clashing with Lionel Messi. His agent Antonio Caliendo has now confirmed he requires an operation, but he doesn't know whether he will be back to play against the Spanish giants in the Camp Nou next week.

"Maicon is ok, but he needs an operation to reconstruct the teeth he lost yesterday," Caliendo told FCInter1908.it.

"However, apart from this he is ok. Maicon is a fighter and he is always positive mentally so this incident will not affect him."

The big question as to whether he will play next week remains unanswered though.

"I cannot say if he will be back for the Champions League, it's down to the doctors to confirm a recovery time. I don't know how long it will take, but I can say that he is in a good condition," he concluded.

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