London: Pep Guardiola's bid to underline Barcelona's status as the best club team in the world is in danger of being derailed in the Champions League by a man appointed by Inter Milan to end decades of failure in European football's biggest club competition.
Barcelona has to overturn Inter's 3-1 first leg lead in the semifinals, although a 2-0 victory over Jose Mourinho's Italian champion at Camp Nou on Wednesday will mean it advances on away goals. That will give Guardiola's team the chance to win the Champions League title for the second season in a row, this time at the home of its biggest domestic rival, Real Madrid, on May 22.
With a final against either Bayern Munich or Lyon to play for, Guardiola believes his team has to maintain the regain the momentum of last season's triumphs in Spain, Europe and the FIFA Club World Cup.
"It's too important for us," he said. "We've just won six titles (in one year) and there's a feeling that if we don't win the double we've achieved nothing.
"We need to settle it as quickly as possible. The game needs that. We can't sit back and see what happens while the minutes are ticking by. We have lots of goals to cancel out."
With both sides hit by injuries and suspensions, it might come down to the battle between two of the best coaching minds in the game.
While Guardiola's motivation is maintaining last season's achievements, Mourinho has to help Inter make up for 55 years of disappointment on the continental stage.
The last time Inter won the European title — then called the European Cup — was in 1965. Some of the biggest names in European football — including Giovanni Trapattoni and Marcello Lippi — have tried and failed to bring the trophy back to San Siro.
Twice a European Cup winner back in the mid-60s, Inter has watched most of the powerhouse clubs capture the title since then and, despite four consecutive Serie A titles, dearly wants to win a competition now known as the Champions League.
An Inter victory in Barcelona will mean that Mourinho, who was an assistant coach at Camp Nou when Guardiola was a player there, will be close to achieving what he was appointed to do.
Inter is chasing the biggest European football prize and the trophy Mourinho held six years ago when he was in charge of Portuguese club FC Porto.
Although he then guided Chelsea to its first league titles in half a century, Mourinho was unable to lead the Premier League club to the Champions League final. Now he is out to end Inter's long wait for European success.
Dutch midfielder Wesley Sneijder, who scored Inter's first goal in the first leg, is a doubtful starter with a left thigh muscle injury and Mario Balotelli, who threw his shirt down after being whistled by Inter fans in the first leg, may not travel.
Since Inter's last appearance in the final in 1993, Bayern has won four European titles but only one since 1976.
Like Mourinho, Bayern coach Louis van Gaal is aiming to capture the trophy with two different clubs, having led Ajax to a triumph in 1995.
But he has been hit by suspensions to Franck Ribery and Danijel Pranjic and, although Mark van Bommel returns from a ban and his team has a 1-0 lead from the first leg, central defenders Daniel van Buyten and Martin Demichelis are both doubtful starters after leaving the field with calf injuries in Saturday's 1-1 draw at Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Lyon has Jeremy Toulalan missing through suspension after he was sent off for two yellow cards in Munich while Brazilians Cris and Michel Bastos could be sidelined through injury.
Coach Claude Puel admitted his team should have taken advantage of Ribery's first half red card in Munich.
"We played with the handbrake on, and we couldn't make the most of the time when we had the extra man," he said. "But we still have our chances for the return leg, even though it would have been good to score away from home.
"We went to Madrid and qualified and now we will go and do it at Stade Gerland. I prefer this kind of scenario, because you play your best football when you need to get a result rather than," protecting a result.
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