This was not last card to be shown by a long way and the ref looked close to losing control of the game when he rightly booked an Inter player for diving - the replay showed that the ref was fully justified, but the Inter player Sneijder decided to come up to the ref and ironically applaud him to his face, which is foolish enough... but you can imagine the look on Mourinho's face when the ref adjudged Sneijder to be guilty of foul and abusive language and promptly sent him off after just 26 minutes of the game had elapsed. Inter are now down to ten men in the most bizarre circumstances. On 40 minutes, the ref saw fit to send one of the Inter coaching staff to the stands too (ironically after an Inter defender won a free kick with another perfectly executed dive - the replay demonstrating no contact from the Milan striker).The testy first half ends with AC Milan pushing their numerical advantage onto their Inter Milan rivals, but failing yet to threaten the Inter goal with any on-target shots and still trailing by an early goal.
The second half starts, and even with one goal in the bag, Inter face an uphill struggle without Sneijder who, for the first 20 minutes had looked very dangerous. Maybe this was in their mind when Inter petulantly delayed their arrival for the second half. AC Milan start strongly with a Beckham free-kick quickly followed by two corners, the second of which brought a fabulous reaction save from the Inter goalie, quickly followed by a well-struck but narrowly wide effort from the still very lively Ronaldinho. Milan had plenty of the play and chances to equalise, one of the better ones when Beckham crossed, only to have the ball headed over the crossbar on the hour mark. Inter had a couple of break-away chances, once hitting the goal post after 62 minutes, theatrical challenges punctuate the game as the Inter players sense a ref who may be looking to even things up. Against the run of play, Inter win a free kick on the edge of the box on 63 minutes and promptly score again, turning the knife in the sickened stomachs of the Milan players, leaving them half an hour to rescue the game. Leonardo waited until the last 10 minutes until Huntelaar came on, although many may have expected Inzaghi... However despite lengthy build-up play and long periods of prolonged posession, Milan were thwarted in their efforts to score. Even Ronaldinho had a wild shot over the bar with 6 minutes left on the clock. Milan were just too ponderous on the ball showing little inventiveness and urgency as the time whittled away to nothing, playing more like a team that was two goals up rather than two goals down against ten men.
There was more excitement on 91 minutes and Inter were down to NINE men when the ball was prevented from going in the net by a hand-ball. Ronaldinho stepped up, but failed to convert the goal with just 4 minutes of extra time left. This was the last significant action of a match which ended with huge disappointment for Beckham and the AC Milan team, only matched by the incredible feeling of triumph experienced by Mourinho's men.
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