Analysis of the Champions League

It is quite early to dis­cuss next season’s Cham­pi­ons League par­tic­u­larly with the World Cup loom­ing ahead but Inter’s his­toric tre­ble was much more than a great achieve­ment. It proved once again how dif­fi­cult it is to repeat as a cham­pion in Europe’s elite club com­pe­ti­tion. For the Ner­az­zurri win­ning the Cham­pi­ons League is the ulti­mate expe­ri­ence hav­ing waited for more than four decades to repeat as cham­pi­ons of Europe.

Pres­i­dent Mas­simo Moratti helped fund the build­ing of the Ner­az­zurri squad and brought in Por­tuguese coach Jose Mour­inho with the spe­cific objec­tive of bring­ing Euro­pean glory to Milan con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent Serie A title holder have not won the Cham­pi­ons League since the 1960s. Pre­vi­ous boss Roberto Mancini suc­ceeded in break­ing the dom­i­nance of Juven­tus and Milan since the early 1990s but failed to com­bine domes­tic suc­cess with an extended run in Europe’s elite com­pe­ti­tion as he never guided the Ner­az­zurri to the Final.

Mour­inho suc­ceeded in win­ning Serie A, Coppa Italia and the Cham­pi­ons League yet he is rac­ing to the exit door leav­ing the Ner­az­zurri in a del­i­cate sit­u­a­tion fol­low­ing the best sea­son in the club’s his­tory. Play­ers such as Maicon and Diego Mil­ito are now being linked with a move to Real Madrid which is Mourinho’s likely des­ti­na­tion. It is only time before Mour­inho is con­firmed as the boss in Madrid unless he has a change of heart and opts to stay with the Ner­az­zurri. Other clubs are begin­ning to assess their chances of lur­ing some of Inter’s key play­ers to leave the penin­sula as Arse­nal have report­edly shown inter­est in goal­keeper Julio Cesar while Man­ches­ter City are look­ing to cap­ture mid­fielder Este­ban Cam­bi­asso. These reports might not become real­ity but all these claims are a major dis­trac­tion for a club cel­e­brat­ing a his­toric tre­ble and with some of the star play­ers headed to South Africa 2010.

Assum­ing Mour­inho and some of the play­ers jump ship, the Ner­az­zurri will be los­ing some key com­po­nents while skip­per Javier Zanetti is only get­ting older despite his con­sis­tent dis­plays. Zanetti deserves credit for his fight­ing spirit and for putting in solid per­for­mances time and again despite his age. Below is a brief look at some of Inter’s main com­peti­tors for next season:

Barcelona: The for­mer hold­ers were ousted by Inter and will be look­ing to regain their lost title. Barca are one of the most tal­ented teams in the world with Lionel Messi and Xavi Her­nan­dez lead­ing the charge. Barca have added a star name in the shape of striker David Villa while the Cata­lans remain in pur­suit of Arse­nal skip­per Cesc Fab­re­gas. If they do sign Fab­re­gas then the team will likely start the next La Liga sea­son and Cham­pi­ons League cam­paign as one of the favourites.

Real Madrid: The record win­ners of the Cham­pi­ons League will wel­come with open arms Mour­inho who has made it clear he will only leave the Ner­az­zurri for Madrid. In Madrid he will have greater indi­vid­ual tal­ent to work with yet less of a cohe­sive unit and a weaker team spirit. Mour­inho will be moti­vated to turn this team of stars into a strong and uni­fied squad. Los Galac­ti­cos already have for­mer Milan idol Kaka and world record sign­ing Cris­tiano Ronaldo in their ranks but it would not be a sur­prise if Mour­inho asked for Maicon and Diego Mil­ito to be signed from Inter. If they do, then Los Galac­ti­cos will be con­sid­ered as a firm favourite con­sid­er­ing they only missed on La Liga title by three points and many for­get it does take time for news play­ers to gel together.

Chelsea: Iron­i­cally Mour­inho was shown the doors at Stam­ford Bridge because he failed to bring Euro­pean glory to the Lon­don club but he did pun­ish his for­mer employ­ers by elim­i­nat­ing them in the knock­out stages of the Cham­pi­ons League by beat­ing them twice home and away. Chelsea hired for­mer Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti and the Ital­ian suc­ceeded in lead­ing the Blues to a his­toric dou­ble by win­ning the Pre­mier League and FA Cup in his first sea­son in charge. Ancelotti made it clear his main objec­tive for next sea­son is to repeat the domes­tic dou­ble and to win in Europe. While Chelsea have a strong squad with expe­ri­ence and tal­ent, the play­ers as indi­vid­u­als are below the tal­ent level of Span­ish giants Real and Barca.

Bay­ern Munich: Bay­ern proved they are a solid team after a slow start to the sea­son and the final in Madrid was per­haps a small rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their sea­son as they only began to show their poten­tial after con­ced­ing the first goal to Inter’s hero Mil­ito. The Bavar­i­ans will have Arjen Robben (despite rumours link­ing him with Juven­tus;  just unlikely to hap­pen for a num­ber of rea­sons) and French star Franck Ribery will appar­ently return after miss­ing the Cham­pi­ons League final due to sus­pen­sion. The Ger­mans are a solid group but like Chelsea they are not on par with Real and Barca if indi­vid­u­als are com­pared on a posi­tion by posi­tion basis.

Man­ches­ter United: Man­ches­ter have one of the best man­agers in Sir Alex Fer­gu­son but he can cer­tainly be stub­born lead­ing him to make the odd mis­take here and there, par­tic­u­larly when it comes to offload­ing cer­tain play­ers or refus­ing to bring in the appro­pri­ate play­ers to replace out­go­ing stars. The Red Dev­ils did not replace Cris­tiano Ronaldo and their chal­lenge for Chelsea in the Pre­mier­ship and before that in the Cham­pi­ons League tie against Bay­ern  fal­tered once it became clear Wayne Rooney is car­ry­ing injury. If Man­ches­ter do not sign a cou­ple of solid play­ers, in par­tic­u­lar one goal scorer to com­ple­ment Rooney, then they will likely fall short in the early knock­out stages with per­haps a quarter-final spot at best.

There are other less likely con­tenders but the strongest ones would be Ital­ian duo Roma and Milan yet the two sides have a num­ber of lim­i­ta­tions such as their restricted bud­get for bring­ing in play­ers and in the case of the Rossoneri an aging squad. Milan will need Brazil­ian stars Ronald­inho and Alexan­dre Pato to stay and will hope a capa­ble coach will take charge at Milanello to pro­mote a few promis­ing play­ers from the youth sec­tor and sign a num­ber of qual­ity play­ers to rein­force the team. As for Roma they have do not have a deep bench and their first team is often rid­dled with injuries due to the age of some key play­ers such as Francesco Totti. It is unlikely either squad will win the Cham­pi­ons League but they can play the role of a spoiler if their stars remain healthy and fit.

It is quite hard to repeat in the Cham­pi­ons League as shown by the famous Milan side in the 1990s which dis­man­tled Barca 4–0 in an epic encounter only to loss the next year in the final to Ajax Ams­ter­dam who in turn were defeated the fol­low­ing year by Juven­tus. The Bian­coneri would go on to play in two more con­sec­u­tive finals yet the curse of repeat­ing would also prove to be their down­fall despite hav­ing the likes of Zine­dine Zidane and Alessan­dro Del Piero (at his peak).

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