AC Milan to win: Paddy Agnewsays the Italians have the most compelling motivation.
Form and motivation. If football matches are decided by the relative form and motivation of the two teams, then AC Milan should beat Liverpool in next Wednesday night's Champions League final in Athens. It could be that simple.
On the Sunday after Milan's humiliating penalty shoot-out loss to Liverpool in Istanbul two years ago, there was a curious little scene at the San Siro stadium in Milan. On that day, the last day of the season, AC Milan's great cross-town rivals, Inter Milan, were at home to Reggina. It was a match that mattered little to Inter who, third in the table, had nothing to play for.
One or two Inter wags opted to liven up the atmosphere by announcing the foundation of the Istanbul branch of the Inter supporters' club, to be called the "May 25th Club" in memory of the night Liverpool made fools of Milan as, in a most non-Italian manner, Milan threw away that three-goal lead.
All over Italy, it has been the same. On those occasions when Milan are not playing well, opposition fans up and down the country taunt them with Istanbul/Liverpool/Dudek. Put simply, as Italian fans and commentators see it, Milan were just ridiculous in Istanbul. For most, that was not so much the game Liverpool won as the game Milan threw away.
In Italian football terms, Milan committed a mortal sin in Istanbul. A good team should be able to defend a 1-0 lead all night long, let alone a 3-0 lead. For two years, that humiliation has stuck in the Milan craw.
All this week, the Milan camp has been trying to avoid the word "revenge". We have nothing against Liverpool, they are a really good team, we just want to win, goes the news conference babble. In reality, though, everyone knows Wednesday night offers Milan the chance, if not of revenge, then certainly of "closure" on one of the most embarrassing nights in all their illustrious history.
Talisman and captain Paolo Maldini (who will be 39 next month and will be playing in nothing less than his eighth Champions League/Cup final) put it this way at Milan's Milanello training centre last Wednesday: "To meet Liverpool in the final could certainly be a sort of revenge for us, but we've got nothing against Liverpool. They're a really strong, all-round unit in which everybody works for the team . . . There's no doubt though that the loss that hurts most was that one in Istanbul, given the way it came about.
"Normally, I've won games when my team deserved to win but that final turned everything on its head. I thought Milan that night had done everything right, had deserved to win, but you've got to accept the result . . ."
Another Milan "veteran", 33-year-old Filippo Inzaghi, scorer of 56 goals in European cup competitions and likely to lead the attack on Wednesday night, put it more succinctly: "I've never really accepted that defeat (in Istanbul) . . . We had it won and we let them take it away from us. But it won't happen this time."
So then, if we can take it for granted that Milan will not lack motivation, what about their form? Here the good news is that they have staged a remarkable springtime revival after a very poor seasonal start.
Involvement in the "calciopoli" corruption scandal; an eight-point Serie A penalty; injuries to key players such as Alessandro Nesta; the sale of another key player in Andriy Shevchenko; an inevitable post-World Cup anti-climax for such as Andrea Pirlo and Gennaro Gattuso - all these factors saw Milan start badly.
Worse still, that corruption scandal threatened to cost Milan their place in the Champions League, the club getting back in only when an original points penalty (to the 2005-2006 standings) was reduced on appeal.
They made a less than impressive group start (losing 1-0 to AEK Athens in Athens and 2-0 to Lille at the San Siro). But the turning point came with that 2-0 quarter-final away win against Bayern Munich. Since then, as Manchester United discovered, when the stakes have been high, the likes of Pirlo, Gattuso, Brazilian Kaka and Dutchman Clarence Seedorf have refound their best form, with a vengeance. That "vengeance" may be the difference between the two teams next Wednesday night.
