The Better Managers Won

Two red cards, a lucky goal and that’s about it. Last night’s european “clash” between Bayern Munich and Olympique Lyon was a poor one, to say the least. After seeing Inter’s win against Barcelona a night before, I was hoping for another good game, but I guess that the Champions League logo flashing all over the place isn’t always a guarantee that quality football is going to take place. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t mongolian quality, no offense to mongolian football, but it was a level or two lower than the first semi-final.

I was expecting things to go a little bit different, silly me. Tuesday’s game

The Other Semi-Final

Who would have thought at the beginning  of the season, that teams like Bayern Munich or Olympique Lyon would reach the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League and teams like Manchester United, Chelsea and Real Madrid would be eliminated so early. This year’s competition is full of surprises, the latest coming from Italy, Inter defeating Barcelona last night 3-1. But tonight’s game looks more balanced, the only thing that would surprise me, but I doubt it, would be Lyon’s victory by more than a goal.

Bayern eliminated Fiorentina and Manchester United to get this far and the germans are slight favorites tonight, playing at home and being in better form, scoring 7 goals in their latest Bundesliga game against Hannover. Last time Bayern won the competition was in 2001, beating Valencia in the final. They’re in first place in the Bundesliga and they hope to win their 22nd title this year. Bayern’s boss is the experienced dutch manager Louis Van Gaal, who has won the competition with Ajax in 1995.

The underdogs are the french

Discipline vs. Passion

Eto’o vs. Messi, Mourinho vs. Guardiola, Moratti vs. Laporta, Italy vs. Spain and Nerazzuri vs. Blaugrana. Tonight at the Giuseppe Meazza Stadium in Milan, the UEFA Champions League semi-final between Inter, the italian champions and Barcelona, the spanish champions, is going to take place.

Two very different teams, with two different managers. Inter with Jose Mourinho, a great experienced tactician with a powerful personality, always planning every aspect of the game, never leaving anything to chance. He’s style of play isn’t always pleasant to look at, but his teams have always been efficient and hard-working. He has already been at this stage of the competition twice, once with Porto and once with Chelsea.

On the other hand

A true rossoneri

Apparently, according to some football websites, AC Milan’s manager Leonardo and vice-president Adriano Galliani have asked 41 year old Paolo Maldini, to return from retirement and come play for the last five games of the Serie A season. This unique request from Milan’s staff is due to the large number of injured defensive players in the team. Players like Kaladze, Jankulovski, Nesta , Bonera and the american Onyewu are all out injured, jeopardizing Milan’s title bid (what’s left of it).

Paolo Maldini is a legend and an icon at San Siro playing 25 seasons of his career at AC Milan and winning 26 trophies, including five UEFA Champions League Cups for the club. The man is a true and loyal rossoneri.

Dimitar Berbatov

“Great transfer, he’s gonna score a million goals, best striker in the world, 30 million? cheap!” this would have been my answer, two years ago if I had been asked what do you think about Dimitar Berbatov signing with United?

Same question, a year later and I would have said “ok, his first year, he needed some time to get to know his teammates, to understand the manager’s style and ideas, next year we’re gonna see a whole new player, who’s Ronaldo?(or Tevez?) we got Berba! we’re the best!”.

Now almost one year later, kicked out of the Champions League in the quarter finals, four points behind Chelsea in the Premier League with four games to go and with our best (and probably the only capable) striker we have injured, does anyone dare to ask me “what do you think about Dimitar Berbatov?”.