Maicon says Jose Mourinho deliberately targeted second place in the 2009-10 Champions League group stage because he wanted Inter Milan to face Barcelona in the semi-finals.
The former Brazil and Inter Milan defender revealed the strategy during a lengthy interview with Prime Video, recalling the campaign that ended with Inter winning the Champions League.
“Players must always believe in themselves,” Maicon said. “You train every day to play in Champions League semi-finals or finals and to face the best teams in Europe.”
Inter Milan met Barcelona four times that season. After drawing the first group-stage meeting, Maicon said the players were instructed to accept defeat in the return fixture so they would finish second in the group.
“We planned to lose the second leg,” he said. “That defeat was arranged so we could finish second. Mourinho had already thought everything through. Seriously.”
Mourinho’s intention was for Inter to qualify as runners-up and meet Barcelona in the semi-finals, although Maicon acknowledged that reaching the last four was far from certain at that stage.
“We wanted to finish second so we could play Barcelona in the semi-finals,” he added. “But we never expected to get that far at that point because we still had to eliminate Chelsea. Finishing second in the group was nevertheless a calculated decision.”
Inter eventually overcame Chelsea in the last 16 before facing CSKA Moscow in the quarter-finals. Maicon recalled Mourinho’s insistence that his side win in Kyiv, despite temperatures of minus 20 degrees.
Mourinho had told the players they needed victory, but Inter fell behind when Andriy Shevchenko scored within 5 minutes. They recovered to win the match, a result Maicon described as extraordinary.
The semi-final against Barcelona then became one of the defining ties of Inter’s European campaign. Maicon said the players and supporters believed they had a chance, despite Barcelona being regarded as the strongest team in the world at the time.
When Pedro put Barcelona ahead, Maicon admitted he was simply grateful Inter had reached that stage. Wesley Sneijder’s equaliser, however, changed the direction of the match.
“After Pedro scored, I thought, ‘Thank God we’ve come this far,’” Maicon said. “Then Sneijder equalised and the game changed. If we had gone into half-time 0-1 down, it would have been very difficult.”
Inter won the semi-final 3-2 on aggregate and went on to defeat Bayern Munich in the final. Maicon also said the respect between the two teams was mutual, despite Barcelona’s status as favourites.
“If you watch the match carefully, you can see that they were afraid of us too,” he said. “Both teams respected each other greatly.”
