Super Sommer enjoying his moment in the sun after helping Inter reach Champions League final

MILAN (AP) — It is rare that a goalkeeper is named player of the match, even rarer when he has conceded three goals.

But Inter Milan’s Yann Sommer was given that honor following an astonishing 4-3 victory over Barcelona on Tuesday that sent the Italian team through to the Champions League final 7-6 on aggregate after extra time.

Sommer’s saves against Barcelona beggared belief in a rollercoaster match that at times went beyond insanity as it somehow managed to be even more drama packed than the 3-3 draw the previous week, with his team truly living up to its “pazza (mad) Inter” nickname.

There was his sensational reaction save on Eric García early in the second half, between Barcelona’s quickfire double that saw the visitors come back from two goals down, and a flying leap to fingertip a Lamine Yamal curler away from the top corner with the score at 2-2.

Sommer saved the best almost for last, however, when he again flew to fingertip another shot from the precocious Barcelona teen around his post. There were just seven minutes of extra time remaining at that point, with Inter leading 4-3, and his teammates celebrated as if they had scored again.

“I’m very happy. It was an amazing match, and the team has gone on an extraordinary journey,” Sommer said. “The toughest save was the last one, because Yamal is really strong and always comes inside to shoot.

“It was also maybe the most important one … because it gave us a little bit power, it gave us the confidence back for these last minutes.”

At the age of 36, Sommer is revelling in his time in the spotlight in perhaps his biggest moment since saving a Kylian Mbappé spotkick to help Switzerland beat France in a penalty shootout in the 2020 European Championship.

And he could even be in line for a much more prestigious acclaim, with Spanish sports newspaper Marca naming him as a strong candidate for the Ballon d’Or award as the world’s best soccer player.

“I could not be happier than now,” Sommer said. “We as a team and as well me, I worked hard for these kind of moments, for these situations, for these games, to be in a club like this.

“In the end I’m here with this beautiful team and we are in the Champions League final.”

It will be Inter’s second final in three years and, having almost defied the odds to get there, Simone Inzaghi’s team might very well be the favorite against either Paris Saint-Germain or Arsenal in Munich on May 31.

Two years ago nobody expected much against Manchester City but Inter only lost 1-0. This time even Inzaghi almost conceded Inter would be favored after eliminating not only Barcelona but Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals.

“We have grown since then,” he said. “These guys have been extraordinary, we have to continue.

“The final will be played against a really great team, whether it’s Arsenal or PSG. It will be difficult but after beating Barcelona and Bayern … well they’re probably the best teams in Europe at the moment.”

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Inter Milan's goalkeeper Yann Sommer celebrates at the end of the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and Barcelona at San Siro stadium in Milan , Italy, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Barcelona's Eric Garcia, center, attempts a shot at goal and saved by Inter Milan's goalkeeper Yann Sommer during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and Barcelona at San Siro stadium in Milan , Italy, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Barcelona's Lamine Yamal, right, attempts a shot at goal in front of Inter Milan's goalkeeper Yann Sommer, left, and Inter Milan's Federico Dimarco during the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and Barcelona at San Siro stadium in Milan , Italy, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Inter Milan's goalkeeper Yann Sommer celebrates at the end of the Champions League semifinal second leg soccer match between Inter Milan and Barcelona at San Siro stadium in Milan , Italy, Tuesday, May 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bob Weir, the guitarist and singer who as an essential member of the Grateful Dead helped found the sound of the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s and kept it alive through decades of tours and marathon jams, has died. He was 78.

“It is with profound sadness that we share the passing of Bobby Weir,” a statement on his Instagram page posted Saturday said. “He transitioned peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after courageously beating cancer as only Bobby could. Unfortunately, he succumbed to underlying lung issues.”

Weir joined the Grateful Dead — originally the Warlocks — in 1965 in San Francisco at just 17 years old. He would spend the next 30 years playing rhythm guitar on virtually nonstop tours alongside fellow singer and guitarist Jerry Garcia, who died in 1995.

“Longevity was never a major concern of ours,” Weir said when the Dead got the Grammys’ MusiCares Person of the Year honor last year. “Spreading joy through the music was all we ever really had in mind, and we got plenty of that done.”

Weir wrote or co-wrote and sang lead vocals on Dead classics including “Sugar Magnolia,” “One More Saturday Night” and “Mexicali Blues.”

After Garcia’s death, Weir would be the Dead's most recognizable face. In the decades since, he kept playing with other projects that kept alive the band's music and legendary fan base, including Ratdog, The Other Ones, and Dead & Company.

Weir’s death leaves drummer Bill Kreutzmann as the only surviving original member. Founding bassist Phil Lesh died in 2024. The band's other drummer, Mickey Hart, practically an original member since joining in 1967, is also alive at 82. The fifth founding member, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, died in 1973.

Dead & Company, featuring former members and guitarist and singer John Mayer, played a series of concerts for the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary in July at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, drawing some 60,000 fans a day for three days.

Born Robert Hall Parber in San Francisco in 1947, Weir would take on the last name of the adoptive parents who raised him in nearby Atherton.

He had dyslexia that went undiagnosed at the time, struggled in school as a child and was kicked out of several institutions. At a Colorado boarding school for boys with behavioral problems, he met his frequent lyricist-collaborator John Perry Barlow.

Weir began playing guitar at age 13 and a few years later met and latched on to Garcia, five years his senior, when he heard him playing banjo in Palo Alto, California.

Weir became the Dead's youngest member and looked like a fresh-faced high-schooler in its early years. He was generally less shaggy than the rest of the band, but he had a long beard like Garcia’s in later years.

The band made its name and forged its identity at the LSD-fueled Acid Tests thrown in San Francisco in the mid-1960s by writer Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.

Their music — called acid rock at its psychedelic inception — incorporated elements of blues, jazz and country in long improvisational jams at concerts.

The band went on to make classic albums including “American Beauty” and “Workingman's Dead,” but the Dead would always be primarily known as a live sensation.

“For over sixty years, Bobby took to the road,” the statement on his Instagram page said. It added that Weir will “forever be a guiding force whose unique artistry reshaped American music.”

Weir took take a backseat to Garcia, whose face was as much an avatar of the band as its legendary skull logo. At times he would be called “The Other One,” the name of an early song he wrote and the title of a 2014 documentary about him.

“Bob Weir wasn’t The Other One, he was That Guy,” TV personality and devoted Dead fan Andy Cohen said on Instagram on Saturday night. “He was impossibly beautiful and wildly fiery, intense and passionate.”

Others paying tribute included the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan, who posted “God Bless Bob Weir” on the social platform X.

In New York, the Empire State Building was lit up in tie-dye colors in his honor.

The band survived long past the hippie moment of its birth, with its ultra-devoted fans known as Deadheads often following them on tours that persisted despite decades of shifting music and culture.

Ubiquitous bumper stickers and T-shirts showed dancing, colored bears, another symbol of the band, and signature phrases like “ain't no time to hate” and “not all who wander are lost.”

The Dead won few Grammys — they were always a little too esoteric — getting only a lifetime achievement award in 2007 and the best music film award in 2018, along with the 2025 MusiCares honor.

Just as rare were hit pop singles. “Touch of Grey,” which brought a big surge in the aging band's popularity in 1987, was their only Billboard Top 10 hit.

But in 2024 they set a record for all artists with their 59th album in Billboard's Top 40. Forty-one of those came since 2012, thanks to the popularity of a series of archival albums compiled by David Lemieux.

Weir also made solo albums, including 1972's “Ace,” 1978's “Heaven Help The Fool” and 2016's “Blue Mountain.”

He is survived by his wife, Natascha, and daughters Monet and Chloe.

FILE - Bob Weir plays guitar with his band The Dead, formerly the Grateful Dead, at the Forum in the Inglewood section of Los Angeles, Calif. on Saturday May 9, 2009. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel,File)

FILE - This undated file photo shows members of the Grateful Dead band, from left to right, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Brent Mydland, Bill Kreutzmann, and Bob Weir. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - Kennedy Center Honors recipients from left; filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, the legendary American rock band the Grateful Dead band members Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann Bob Weir and blues rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Bonnie Raitt, applaud at at the 2024 Kennedy Center Honors reception in the East Room of the White House, Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta,File)

FILE - Bob Weir arrives at Willie Nelson 90, celebrating the singer's 90th birthday on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles. (Photo by Allison Dinner/Invision/AP,File)

FILE - Bob Weir of Dead & Company performs at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Manchester, Tenn. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP,File)