Champions League: Post-Mortem

By: Martha | April 25th, 2007

Roo v Old Men As you might expect, everyone at Milan was rueful but not without hope after the game, because that’s how they had to be. Oddo, who apparently has low expectations, declared the result “not bad,” and nicely pretended Dida wasn’t a complete disaster. Adriano Galliani, meanwhile, assured everyone his club has a 50-50 chance of winning the home leg and advancing — or, if you prefer, “50 probabilities on hundreds to pass the turn.”

As you also might expect, the best reaction of all came from Gattuso, who was furious with himself for having the nerve to get hurt (though not so hurt that he didn’t allegedly get into it with an Old Trafford steward after the game). When no one is watching, he’ll probably bet the crap out of his own foot for being so soft and letting the team down; hopefully that beating won’t change his prognosis, because at the moment he seems on-course to be back in time for the return leg. Which would be nice, since the game entirely changed when he went off — Brocchi is a bulldog in his own right, but he’s no Gattuso, and lacks Rino’s ability to bring the team together through sheer force of pissed-off will. Oh, and he also gave the ball away before Rooney’s second goal. (Oops.)

Most of the international press, on the other hand, remain obsessed with the perceived Who Rules More? battle between Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo, and they’ve solemnly declared that Kaka won the day. But, you know, since Milan lost and everything, I’m not sure anyone not named “Crisitano” really cares. Kaka does lead the Champions League in scoring by a wide margin now, but if Milan don’t go on to win the tournament, it’s unlikely anyone will remember that by the time the summer ends.

Me, I’m going to try to think like the ever-optimistic Galliani: “We conceded a late goal against Bayern Munich as well, this seems to be our destiny, but we overcame that and can do so again … After the first leg against Bayern we were far more worried and upset than we are now … Manchester are extremely aggressive on home turf and I think they will lose that edge on their travels without this crowd pushing them on.” In other words, fingers crossed.