SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE

This year, the UEFA Champions league finals will be held in the magnificent Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, Madrid, Spain. It will pitch Internazionale against Bayern Munchen. The publicity has not been the best at this part of the world maybe owing to the fact that there are no English or Spanish teams in the finals, or that its on a Saturday not a Wednesday or maybe because of the anticipation of the world cup. Whatever it is it should still live up to the expectation of a very good European final between two teams and two managers looking to make history. To make things any more dramatic, it’s the apprentice vs master. It may not be a classic but it has a lot of promise to be a good game of football from two good sides.

In the red corner we have the Bavarians, Bayern Munchen of Germany. They are coached by the tactically sound Louis Van Gaal. He had a rough start to coaching in Germany but his wealth of experience helped him to steady the ship and now they are on course to win an unprecedented treble of championships; the League and cup have already been settled with both trophies in the bag, now he has the chance to make history as the man to help this great club to their first of such exploits. On a personal note he is also looking to join the elite coaches that have won this trophy with 2 different teams.

When the grouping was announced in Monte Carlo last year, many of the pundits looked at group A comprising of Juventus, Bayern Munchen, Bordeaux and Maccabi Haifa and tipped the first 2 to go through, Bordeaux to go into the newly name Europa League, and Maccabi with the wooden spoon, but Bordeaux shocked them all. Van Gaal’s side took 4 point from their opening 2 games. After losing a double header against Bordeaux, they were in dire need of points. They beat Maccabi Haifa at home and the next stop was a trip to Turin to face an equally troubled Juventus side scrambling for points, this game a playoff for second place in the group as Bordeaux left the giants trailing in their wake. To make matters worse they travelled without an injured Franck Ribery while Arjen Robben was just returning from injury and could only make the bench. It was a young Thomas Muller and the man with the four lungs, Ivica Olic that inspired the team to a 4-1 away win to secure qualification into the knockout round.
In the round of sixteen a controversial Miroslav Klose goal in the last minute secured a 2-1 win against Fiorentina at home, TV replays showed that he was clearly offside. Scratch that, everyone saw that he was clearly offside. In the second leg Fiorentina looked to have shaken off the disappointment of their away tie and were in the lead 2-0 until a 5 minute period of end to end, action packed football containing 3 goals, the last a thunderbolt from Arjen Robben’s left foot making the scores 3-2 to Fiorentina. The game ended like this and Bayern went through on the away goals rule
(4-4 aggregate score).
Their quarterfinal tie looked to be a step too far for a team that had struggled so far and up next was a date with last years beaten finalists Manchester United, in the home tie they showed spirit to come back from conceding in the first minute of the game to win 2-1, the winner from Ivica Olic who ran his socks off for 90 minutes and got his reward for his persistence, a 92nd minute winner making the most of a defensive error from the red devils. In the second leg it looked to be all done and dusted, Man. Utd. leading 3-1 with 15 minutes to go; then the mercurial Robben struck again with a master class of a goal. They qualified on the away goals rule AGAIN WITH A 4-4 SCORELINE! (Do they do demons or jass?). The semifinals against Olympique Lyonnais was less dramatic; they won both games convincingly with a 4-0 aggregate score, the sour part of the story being the straight red card that will rule Franck Ribery out of the finals. He appealed but his case was thrown out of court and they will have to manage without him in the finals down the left hand side of attack. Did they steady the ship in the semifinals or they Lyon was not a worthy opponent?

In the blue corner we have Internazionale from Milan, Italy. They are coached by the “special one” the outspoken Jose Mourinho (sometimes he speaks like he suffers from mouth diarrhoea) . He was the assistant to Van Gaal in Barcelona in the late 90’s, they were successful together and Van Gaal claimed he was too good to be an assistant and recommended him to be the team coach of their B side. Now they will lock horns against each other and Mourinho will be keen to show how much he has grown since then. He is also looking to be win a treble with his team as well as win the Champions league with a second team.

Internazionale also started their run to the finals with a not so convincing start, they drew their first three games in a group that contained the defending champions Barcelona, (the two teams exchanging players and a lot of money during the summer transfers) Rubin Kazan and Dynamo Kyiv. They were in danger of losing out on the latter stages of this year’s edition of the champion’s league. They had to dig dip to play their best football to qualify. They did and beat Dynamo Kyiv away only to be deflated 2-0 by Barcelona. Luckily other teams in the group didn’t have it easy and second place was open to all the other teams, Inter was in pole position and just needed a win to qualify, they did this with a 2-0 home win against Rubin Kazan.
Their second round draw was a very interesting affair, against Jose Mourinho’s former employers Chelsea. He didn’t leave London on a good note and was obviously out to prove a point to them, this he did in fine form with a home and away win. They showed the defensive capabilities usually expected of Mourinho’s teams and hit on the counter with clinical accuracy. Walter Samuel, Lucio and Esteban Cambiasso were rock solid in both legs; a beautiful counterpunch goal from Samuel Eto’o settled the tie in London.
The quarterfinal draw was a rather kind one against CSKA Moscow, who showed little resistance and Inter did just what was necessary; a 1-0 win home and away to setup a dream matchup between Inter and Barcelona in the semi’s, the two favourites for the title.
In the first leg in Milan, against the form books, the run of play and any other run used in football, Inter came back from a goal down to beat the champions 3-1. In the second leg, Esteban Cambiasso limited the powers of the Worlds best player Lionel Messi with top drawer man marking (Maradona must have unearthed some new grass he’s smoking to have dropped him).The message was clear from the onset, they came to defend for 90 minutes, they parked the team bus in front of the post and refused to buckle. It took 84 minutes for Barca to find a breakthrough and they almost took the tie but for a questionably disallowed goal from Bojan. They advanced to the finals 3-2 on aggregate and Jose was quick to show the fans that he had grown from "the apprentice" and “the translator” (to Bobby Robson) into “the special one” with his provocative style of celebration.
Is Inter going to stroll to the title? Has Mourinho rehearsed a taunting celebration for Louis Van Gaal? Or will the master prevail over the apprentice? Another question to ponder on is what are the chances of Arjen Robben becoming the World Footballer of the year?

PLAYERS TO WATCH OUT FOR:
Bayern: Arjen Robben, Ivica Olic, Thomas Muller and Phillipp Lahm.
Inter: Maicon, Lucio, Wesley Schneider, Diego Milito and of course Samuel Eto’o it’s his third time in the finals.

WEAK POINTS:
Bayern: NO Ribery and Holger Badstuber is not a very good defender (if he plays).
Inter: Javier Zanetti might be found wanting for pace, and some of the Inter players might not keep their cool under pressure and they will be tested by the industry and strength of the Bayern attack.

My Verdict: Bayern to take it in regulation time.


On Saturday 22nd May, 2010 one team will go home as winners of the coveted UEFA Champions League, treble winners and a manager that joins Otmar Hitzfeld on the list of managers that have won the title twice with 2 different teams, who will it be?... Something’s gotta give.