Thursday March 8, 2007

What a week in Europe! Inter went out in their usual dramatic fashion – only this time it was the opposition roughing them up, not their own fans – while Milan managed to score one whole goal against Celtic in 210 minutes of play. Impressive. Credit to Milan for their fifth straight appearance in the quarter-finals, but Silvio Berlusconi’s assertion that the Rossoneri should now rank as favourites should be taken with a hefty pinch of salt, if there’s any left over after all his talk of signing Ronaldinho, that is.

As for Inter, how for the second year running they left it till the dying stages of a must win fixture to get out of neutral is anyone’s guess. Still, there’s always next year, and they did at least display a real team spirit in their post match melee. Francesco Toldo in particular deserves some sort of medal. The beanpole-like ‘keeper bursting into Valencia’s locker-room on his own to sort out David Navarro, the man who’d broken Nicolas Burdisso’s nose.

The real heroes of midweek, however, were Roma. I remember Gerard Houllier appearing as a guest on a Serie A show a few years back and telling me he didn’t like Italian Football because it was ‘too dull’. I wonder what he thinks of it now? Visitors virtually never win at Lyon’s Stade de Gerland, but the Giallorossi buried Houllier’s team there with what’s got to be the most stylish and emphatic win we’ve seen from anyone so far in this year’s tournament.

As anyone who’s tried to argue the case for calcio with the likes of Ged will know, there’s an incredible level of ignorance out there, so thank goodness for the Giallorossi for giving the clichés a right kicking. They were fouled but didn’t react. They were wrongly penalised, but didn’t whine. Above all, they demonstrated that even if Serie A’s runaway leaders have failed to reach the quarter-finals, Italian clubs still deserve a place in the top tier of the game. Long may it continue.