Movies and mayhem on the road to Milan

(GETTY IMAGES)

It was no ordinary day at the Ambrussum service station just off the A9 heading through Nimes in southern France on Sunday when a certain Leo Messi ambled up to the bar, dropped his shoulder to swerve past a couple of long-distance lorry drivers and ordered a cafe au lait.

Messi and his Barcelona team-mates stopped off at the roadside cafe between Montpellier and Marseilles en route to Cannes on the first leg of their 620-mile coach trip to Milan for tonight's Champions League semi-final first leg against Internazionale.

"Gudjohnsen has really done it to us this time," joked one player boarding the 3pm team bus out of Barcelona on Sunday in reference to the Icelandic volcano that meant Barça's trip to Italy had to be brought forward almost 24 hours depriving the players of a day with their families after Saturday night's hard-fought goalless draw against Espanyol.

Barcelona's 20-man squad boarded one 38-seater coach accompanied by club doctor Ricard Pruma and director Rafa Yuste, while Pep Guardiola and his assistant, Tito Vilanova, were joined by various members of the club's technical and administrative staff in a second coach.

Chaotic traffic jams in Montpellier turned what should have been a six-hour journey into one of eight hours but armed with iPods and dressed in club tracksuits as opposed to the business suits usually worn for Champions League trips the players arrived in Cannes at 10.30pm on Sunday night before setting off again yesterday morning to complete the second leg of their journey.

On the players' coach, Al Pacino's American Football film Any Given Sunday topped the cinema bill that also included the Clint Eastwood-directed Invictus. And after the highly motivational tales of winning against all odds came something a little lighter, Spanish pin-up Paz Vega in Juan Calvo's comedy Di que sí.

While his players enjoyed the work of Morgan Freeman and Cameron Diaz, Guardiola only had eyes for the performances of Walter Samuel and Esteban Cambiasso. The Barça coach spent most of the journey watching videos of Inter games this season.

Guardiola had likened the trip to those he endured the season before taking over as first-team coach at Barcelona. As manager of the "B" team he shared many a bus journey with his players en route to winning the third division title. Though none would have involved stopping off at a €14,000-a-night hotel, that being the price of the Royal Suite at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes where the Barça squad broke up their two-day journey before arriving in Milan yesterday afternoon.

The Newcastle team undertook a similar journey yesterday, although perhaps with a slightly less glamourous destination – Plymouth – for last night's Championship match. They set off early in the morning for the seven-hour, 409-mile trip.