Our two Champions League group stage matches against Inter Milan in 2003 were as vastly different an experience as it’s possible to have in football - so much so that Arsene Wenger would later describe the two games as being ‘“polar opposites….like day and night.”
On a warm September evening at Highbury, as we were already moving through the gears in a league season in which we’d remain unbeaten, the hosts were in confident mood. Inter were struggling in Serie A, and with talisman Christian Vieri absent, they looked vulnerable.
Yet in a first-half blitz, Inter scored three times. Julio Cruz and Andy van der Meyde netted within three minutes of each other, and Thierry Henry spurned an opportunity to turn the momentum when he saw a penalty saved from Francesco Toldo. Four minutes before a much-needed interval, Obafemi Martins also found the net, and Wenger’s shell-shocked side had no answer after the interval.
We then drew 0-0 at Lokomotiv Moscow, and lost 2-1 against Dynamo Kyiv. Despite pipping the Ukrainians in the return match at Highbury, our legendary French boss knew that we faced likely elimination unless we beat Inter in the iconic San Siro Stadium on matchday five.
It proved to be the most astonishing night in our European history.
Henry fired us ahead from the edge of the box following an interchange of passes with Ashley Cole, before the fit-again Vieri equalised, courtesy of a huge deflection off Sol Campbell. The striker, who was in dispute with Inter after they sold his partner Hernan Crespo to Chelsea that summer, refused to celebrate, leading to cat-calls from the home crowd.
After the teams emerged for the second half, we turned on the style. “European matches are often like games of chess, but Inter Milan gave us plenty of space in the later stages,” skipper Patrick Vieira later told me. After 49 minutes, Henry turned provider, and his cross was turned home by Freddie Ljungberg. As Inter poured forward, more gaps appeared to expose, and Henry accelerated away from inside his own half, flew past Javier Zanetti and fired past Toldo from a narrow angle.
Inter disintegrated. Edu poked home a fourth from another Henry assist, and after Jeremie Aliadiere scampered down the right and passed to Robert Pires, the winger slotted home our fifth. The Gooners behind the Inter goal were delirious, and the home fans that remained to the end stood in sheer disbelief.
“This result shows you how fragile team sports are and how things can change,” said a beaming Wenger afterwards. Remarkably, given the slow start we’d made to the Champions League campaign, we ended up topping Group B, and Inter Milan were eliminated.
Although we were defeated by Chelsea in the quarter-finals, we went on to have a historic league campaign as the Invincibles were born. While 2003/04 is rightly remembered for our domestic achievements, it’s worth noting that the iconic side also produced one of our classic continental successes in the midst of it.
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