Champions League: The Morning After

In Italy, needless to say, the papers are all sweetness and light, full of appreciations of The Great Maldini and his comparatively youthful friend, Super Pippo (as well as one creepily intrustive gallery of Kaka praying). There’s no one who has more problems with Inzaghi than I –he’s the sort of striker I hate, the kind who hang about and then seem to score entirely by accident on an infuriatingly regularly basis — but the man was magnificent last night. Despite knowing little about the first goal, his work rate was phenomenal, and it was his intelligence and desire that got his shoulder in the way of that ball. And the second he knew everything about, and finished wonderfully. I know I’ll go back to throwing up my hands in disgust at his antics in just a few months but for now I’ll just bow before his desire — in a lot of ways he willed Milan to the win, which is not something many lone strikers have the ability (or audacity) to do.

Even in the British press, which has its fair share of belly-aching and blaming of the referee (Which is my hugest pet peeve in sports — if you didn’t get it done, ball up and deal with it. The referee almost never is the reason a team loses.), has room for praise of Milan, particularly of Maldini and, grudgingly, Inzaghi. Really, most of the whining has come from Rafa Benitza and Liverpool supporters (including, one assumes, this gentleman here); the players themselves, to their credit, have largely taken the high road, expressing dismay and frustration, but accepting the result with professionalism and class.

Regarding the Champions of Europe, they spent the immediate post-game period in “drunkenness total,” but are due back in Milan at 230pm (thank you, official website), and will parade around the city with the trophy tonight — at 7pm, to be precise. If you’re lucky enough to be in Milan right now, the team website will post a wildly detailed map of the route later today, so you can plan where you’re going to stand to bow down to Pippo. For those of us not in Milan, the whole thing will probably be anti-climactic because of the hack Milan hired as a photographer (as opposed to the genius at Inter and the OCD freak at Palermo), but if his grainy, sad pictures are the only way we can be there, I suppose they’ll have to do.

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Category: AC Milan, Champions League, Rumors & News, Serie A