Milan’s Champions League triumph is sweet, sweet revenge says Hasan Saiyid
In football, more than other sports, rivalries are particularly intense.
What would Spanish football be without the enmity between Real Madrid and Barcelona,
or Scottish football without the mutual sectarian loathing between Celtic and
Rangers? Perhaps insipid fare with even more infuriating platitudes in press
conferences.

The Champions League, most of the time, pits clubs from different countries
against each other. Normally there is nothing political or religious at stake,
and so the tournament itself creates and sustains rivalries. There was that
infamous incident between Chelsea and Barcelona during 2005, when Jose Mourinho
claimed that referee Anders Frisk had visited the Barcelona locker room at
half-time. Chelsea won that duel, but a year later Barcelona got their revenge
by knocking them out in the round of sixteen.

Then, of course, there are rivalries that result from the action on the pitch.
In recent memory, Liverpool’s astonishing victory against Milan in the 2005
Final stands out as the most prominent example of how two teams, with no supra-football
dispute, can create a rivalry. Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti described his team’s
capitulation to Liverpool on that fateful day as “six minutes of madness”.
Milan were leading 3-0 going into the break, and they were playing imperiously.
About ninety minutes later, they were left wondering how they squandered such
a commanding lead to then lose on penalties.

It was the single most remarkable Final in the history of the tournament,
and the feeling was that any subsequent match between Milan and Liverpool would
definitely be a revenge opportunity for the former.

On May 23 of this year, Milan finally avenged that staggering defeat by beating
Liverpool 2-1 in the Champions League Final in Athens. Milan’s triumph was
a remarkable feat considering the psychological pressure the club was under.
They absolutely had to vanquish their nemesis, and they did with a canny
2-1 win. The match definitely lacked the verve of the Istanbul Final of two
years ago, but Athens was witness to a Milan side that were in no mood to spurn
their advantage. After goal-poacher par excellence Filippo Inzaghi gave them
the lead via a deflected free-kick, they suffocated Liverpool. Javier Mascherano
marshaled Kaka very well, but once the Argentine went off, Kaka set up Inzaghi
for the killer second goal. Dirk Kuyt’s late effort, with just 3 minutes
to go, was mere consolation.

Milan’s seventh European crown puts them only two behind Real Madrid, and
given the consistency of the Rossoneri in this competition, it would not be
surprising were they to equal Real’s record within the next few years.

Serie A still supreme

Milan’s Champions League glory comes just a year after Italy hoisted the
World Cup in Berlin and is an emphatic rebuttal to all those who consider Italian
football to be inferior to the English or Spanish version. Italy is now home
to the highest accolades in world football and to some of the best players
in the world.

Seven Italians started the Final for Milan, with nine in total playing by
the end of the night. Is it a coincidence that Italian players are enjoying
such great success? While there is considerable foreign talent in Serie A (and
Serie B, given Juventus’s demotion), it is Italy’s homegrown talent that has
ruled the roost. Milan’s Alessandro Nesta, Massimo Oddo, Paolo Maldini, Massimo
Ambrosini, Gennaro Gattuso, Andrea Pirlo, Filippo Inzaghi and Alberto Gilardino
have all played a key role in the club’s Champions League win this season.

Milan’s win means that Italy is now a joint leader with Spain in most European
Cup wins. While English football is undoubtedly enjoying financial prosperity
due to a flurry of foreign investment, it is not necessarily dominating Europe.
True, an English side has contested each of the last three Champions League
Finals, but on two of those occasions a team from Spain and Italy walked off
with the trophy. Even when Liverpool did win the Champions League in 2005,
it was under highly fortuitous circumstances.

While England rejoiced this year in having three semi-finalists competing
in the Champions League, they now have to come to terms with the ignominy that
it was the one non-English representative (Milan) which emerged victorious.
Indeed, when Spain and Italy last had three representatives in the semi-finals,
one of the three went on to win the tournament.

Milan’s march to the Final also left the reigning English champions, Manchester
United, mauled beyond recognition. The Italian side demolished Sir Alex Ferguson’s
charges 3-0 in the second leg of the semi-final at the San Siro, and the
performance truly reinforced that Italian football is still supreme when it
comes to technical ability, tactical awareness, and intelligent football–in
short, all that matters on the pitch.