Yann Sommer is the hero of San Siro – Inter beat Barça 4-3 after extra time and are in the Champions League final

Here's a photo, there's an interview: Yann Sommer stood on the pitch at Milan's San Siro until after midnight on Wednesday night, still in his team uniform. The Inter staff had only brought him a blue jacket.

It was raining, it was cold, but there was so much to capture and so much to discuss: Sommer's trophy for the award as the best player of the match. A legendary match that propelled Inter to the Champions League final with a 4-3 win after extra time against FC Barcelona (first leg 3-3). And Sommer's saves, of which there were so many in the 120 high-intensity minutes that it was impossible to keep count.

"Which of these saves will you remember for the rest of your life?" the 36-year-old was asked on Italian television. Sommer cited his most recent masterpiece in the 114th minute, when he somehow managed to get his fingertips on the ball to stop a curling shot from Lamine Yamal – and the crowd was astonished to note that it was a corner: In such a fast-paced scene, it wouldn't have been obvious to the naked eye. "That save was truly special," said the former Swiss national goalkeeper. "Because Yamal is an incredibly good player."

Sommer and Yamal: This duel at San Siro ultimately condensed the entire semifinal. Last week, the Inter goalkeeper had already prevented a worse outcome against the 17-year-old superstar, who had dominated the expert debates more than ever since the gala performance in the first leg.

In Milan, even before the match, every conversation among fans immediately turned to the youngster, whom Inter coach Simone Inzaghi had described as a truly exceptional talent and chosen as the center of his tactical considerations. When the game finally kicked off, the Milanese crowd's awe was palpable whenever Yamal touched the ball: Sometimes their respect for him was expressed in anxious silence, sometimes in loud whistles. And always in sighs of relief when the ball was in someone else's possession.

But Yamal often got through – and it was always summer. This was also the case in the last duel during regular time: Lamine shot into his arms after hitting the post just minutes earlier, and in the meantime, Inter's unexpected equalizer came courtesy of central defender Francesco Acerbi, who had unexpectedly emerged as a striker. These three scenes occurred in stoppage time alone – so much for the almost unbearable intensity of this match.

It's impossible, then, to list all the saves Sommer made to keep his team in the game in the second half, when Barça could have scored many more goals than the three that turned a 2-0 deficit into a temporary 3-2 lead. However, at least one scene from the 57th minute deserves special mention: Inter's defense, including Sommer, was counterattacked with every trick in the book, and Eric García shot at the empty net – but Sommer swooped in out of nowhere to make the save.

"Thanks to his mother," Inter defender Yann Bisseck later joked on social media, while Spain's sports newspaper "As" ran the headline "Sommer thwarts Barça's heroics" and legendary coach Fabio Capello, as a TV pundit, gave "enormous applause for Sommer": "In a Champions League full of great attackers, it is the goalkeepers who have made the difference so far."

It's ironic: At 36, Sommer is receiving the international recognition his complete, nerve-racking goalkeeping has always deserved. While he may have made a positive impression at major tournaments with the Swiss national team, from which he has since retired, he always remained somewhat under the radar during his long club career at Borussia Mönchengladbach. And when he stepped in for the injured Manuel Neuer at Bayern Munich in 2023, the troubled club quickly labeled him one of the scapegoats of its crisis.

Inter thanked him for the bargain price of seven million euros. In Milan, former sporting director and current president Beppe Marotta has made an art out of signing players who were underrated elsewhere on favorable terms. The fans adore the official: When he was flashed up on the video screen during the match against Barcelona, ​​there was a huge uproar. Businessmen at other clubs rarely experience something like that. But together with Inzaghi, Marotta can be considered the architect of a project that only ranks 14th in the European sales rankings, but is now reaching its second Champions League final after 2023.

When Inter lost 1-0 to Manchester City, Sommer was still in Munich. Now he's returning to his former workplace for the final on May 31.

"I was in tears right after the final whistle," Sommer said on German television. "I'm 36 years old, I'm not the youngest anymore, and now I get to play in a Champions League final with this team. I couldn't be happier."

Sommer will be the eighth Swiss player to win the biggest continental match in club football. And he could become only the fifth to win the Henkel Trophy, following Stéphane Chapuisat (Dortmund 1997), Ciriaco Sforza (Bayern 1999), Xherdan Shaqiri (Bayern 2013, Liverpool 2019; both without appearances), and Manuel Akanji (Manchester City 2023).

Like him, it could be the last chance for many of his teammates in the Champions League's oldest squad, with an average age of 29.5, to win the big prize. Inter appear determined to seize the opportunity. Captain Lautaro Martínez, who played with an injury but still scored a goal and provoked a penalty, said: "This team never dies."

And above all, she has Yann Sommer.