2008-09-10T07:16:33-04:00 2007-05-23T17:54:46-04:00 77 2008-09-10T06:40:27-04:00 1 8 10 2007-05-30T11:54:08-04:00 1 XX sammysweetboy No City 31001 hmmmm.. my comments,...the world is so emotional that they have taken away the beauty of the game and its potential because of just one-match scandal, suddenly we can't forgive a team for being geniuely entertaining over the last 20yrs. It is amazing what effect one mistake can do in modern times to blind the world of a geniue footballing nation. while the english cry and cry over the likes of liverpool, chelsea, manchester utd and arsenal for being the local champions, they forget to appreciate just how much talent is being beed in the outside world. Before the 06/07 champions league started, i saw the odds of winning the champions league and laughed, chelsea, barcalona, R.madrid, liverpool, arsenal, valencia, celtice tc.. all ranked before AC milan and other italian teams, everyone forgetting the quality of the team which won the world cup with all six strikers scoring at least a goal even with a star defender injured!!!. the odds still did not favour milan even after qualifying through each stage with class which was not found in other teams and with some big teams fading fast from the competition the odds were not tipped in their favour until there got to the final!! (not even in the semis). I always knew who was going to win the competition even though i was made out to be crazy when said it out to everyone around me. To be honest, i had a rethink after the 1st half, but on a second thought you can't waste such chances against any milan team of the last 10yrs and expect to win, forget deflection, milan was going to win that match away and can anyone tell me why the liverpool win in istanbul was not a fluke(greatest come-back my foot), this liverpool loss has opened the eyes of liverpool &amp; probably most of the teams in d competition for the need for a deadly finisher, ask benitez-he has none (though i still believe in kuyt to bring that promise), ask ancelotti, he misses shevchenko i am not a brit or an italian or even a european but i can tell you as an unbiased african that the brits think they produce the best football in europe-one of the greatest self-deception i have ever encountered in my generation. the premiership is just filled with slide tackles, crosses and headers, with little tactically gifted players and no ball-sense whatsoever. the italian &amp; the spanish play the best football in europe, this year, its the italians, and based on the quality of play, the premiership is probably the 6th best in europe. 3-english teams in the semis was a fluke &amp; the winner proved that. no way was there going to be 3 italian teams in semis without one of the teams winning the competition (remember 2002 which eventually had all italian final) pirlo, seedorf, nesta, gattuso, inzaghi even dida are the most underrated players by the english press i have ever known. and surprisingly even sir alex made the same mistake of underestimating the team before the match, well he got his punishment- treble over!! if an english team had won the competition, the world would not have heard enough from the english press by now, fact?!?! but milan won , and suddenly, nothing about it in the english papers. what happened to dignity in loss!! same problem they heard with mourinho , they also share (a pot calling a kettle &quot;black&quot;) Milan won, italy is the top footballing nation (probably after brazil) end of story, and guess what?!?! the FIFA &amp; EUROPEAN best player is from AC milan-kaka, --want to bet??? 20551 2007-05-27T09:25:17-04:00 http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/180/54/thumb/Bourque_Stanley_Cup.jpg 347 MA NEfan01 Westwood 18094 AC Milan was the better team by far, and deserved the win, especially after what happened last year. Liverpool is not nearly as dominant a team as Milan, and even tho Milan is in a league with only a few great teams, a team like Chelsea, Man U, Barca, hell even Arsenal wouldd have been better suited to play in this game. great game, and Kaka's 360 move was specatacular. 20378 2007-05-26T10:53:21-04:00 2 PR abdulaziz alqabandi Guaynabo 29644 Milan winning the champions league isn???t something far to believe, they have played quite well since the beginning of the early stages except for the celtic match which luck played a big role. I consider inzaghi to be the LUCKIEST! Striker alive! Which is a good thing for Milan,I mean during the game inzaghi didn???t do much damage! He even doesn???t know how to avoid the offside trap! or control a ball. But the good thing is that he keeps running and running all the time which makes lots of defenders confused. In the end, I believe Milan are the greatest right now in Europe cause as you can see they can play beautiful games like the ones against man u and Bayern and they can play highly technical games such as the one with Liverpool. FORZA MILANO! 19820 2007-05-26T10:51:58-04:00 2 PR abdulaziz alqabandi Guaynabo 29644 Milan winning the champions league isn???t something far to believe, they have played quite well since the beginning of the early stages except for the celtic match which luck played a big role. I consider inzaghi to be the LUCKIEST! Striker alive! Which is a good thing for Milan,I mean during the game inzaghi didn???t do much damage! He even doesn???t know how to avoid the offside trap!nor control the ball. But the good thing is that he keeps running and running all the time which makes lots of defenders confused. In the end, I believe Milan are the greatest right now in Europe cause as you can see they can play beautiful games like the ones against man u and Bayern and they can play highly technical games such as the one with Liverpool. FORZA MILANO! 18776 2007-05-26T06:17:56-04:00 1 XX qwerty No City 29618 Grant I disagree with most yours points. 1.) Milan deserved to win. Did we watch the same game??? Liverpool contolled most of the match. Milan had 4 attempts at goal, Liverpool had 10. Milan scored a lucky goal, at a crucial time, and scored again when Mascherano was sacrificed. They jus took their chances, while Liverpool squandered theirs. 2.) The one-forward formation is maddening. Well tactically Benitez was spot on, as Liverpool forced Milan to play their worst match in 2007. 3.) Andrea Pirlo is underrated class. Yeah he is class, but he gave away the ball too much. 4.) Liverpool's wingers were abysmal. Zenden yes, but Liverpool didnt have any other alternatives, Kewell would probably have limped off after 30 mins. Pennants decision making and execution of crosses was poor, but he ran the Milan defence ragged. 5.) Italian soccer is majorly schizophrenic. True One last point, the referee, Herbert Fandel gave all the 50-50 decisons in the first half hour to Milan. I jus knew then that Liverpool would lose eventually. He has refereed five other Milan games and the Rossoneri had won all five, conceding jus 1 goal. He has also refereed 3 Liverpool games. Liverpool didnt win, nor score in any of their games. He sent off Paul Scholes against Roma after 30 minutes, but only after Chivu influenced him to do so. I bit like when he awarded Milan a freekick, even when Mascherano got the ball. Initially he didnt book him, then he was surrounded by Milan players, and then amazingly he pulls a yellow card. That was as bad as when Inzaghi had his ???rivaldo vs. Turkey WC 2002??? moment. Fandel's free kick award just outside Liverpool's box was a gift. I think he???s either biased against English teams, or really bad luck for them. An English team has never won when his been in charge of a match. The list of fatalities include the English under 21 side, Middlesboro, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United 3 times. Still all that counts is Milan won and are European champions, congratulations. 17698 2007-05-25T12:09:36-04:00 1 MA jackson52 Lowell 29291 i think AC milan deserved to win because they had alot of goals oppertunities and if Liverpool was not going to keep defending I think it would had been more than 2 goals. Liverpool also did a great job buy palying hard to tied up. 17697 2007-05-25T11:33:30-04:00 1 CT King Calcio Weston 29267 Inzaghi as well as Pirlo is saying that the first goal was the result of a set play that Milan runs in practices. If the truth, it's an interesting view into the different philosophy of Italian and British soccer. Can you imagine an EPL team practicing such a flair, even one managed by a Spaniard? 18135 2007-05-25T10:06:45-04:00 http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/289/52/thumb/Maldini_2007_ucl.jpg 19 DC The Saint Washington 29012 I agree it was a coaching duel to a point. Carlo mentioned after the game that he had to take the tempo slow because of the age factor and him not wanting to overexpose Milan's defense on the counterattack. Look at it this way, when they played Man U, the last goal that Rooney scored resulted from Milan moving their defense to far up and loosing concentration. This time Carlo didn't want to fool around. Plus, Maldini was playing injured (he didn't have the operation on his knee because he wanted to play in the final and help out the team) so they couldn't go up to far without having a serious counterattack and Kiyut or Alonso making strong runs to the goal. The other factor was Milan's defense and midfield particultary thier defense mid-fielders-Gattuso and Ambrionsini. Both were great rocks and marked everyone that went back. You can tell Ambriosini was impressive in the center when he was helping out Maldini in the back. Furthermore, the way Milan operates is to crowd around you like wasps each time someone possess a ball near their defensive area. Notice one thing Liverpool had a very nice mid-fielding tempo but as soon as they hit Milan's defensive territory they could not move or make set-ups because the whole defense and team just man marked anyone who had the ball. Meaning Liverpool could not breath when they were in the back. However, on the counter attack this looked to be Milan's stronger point at times in the second half. I have to admit Liverpool didn't let Kaka breath but Inzhagi's experience and just his natural know how of knowing where to be on the pitch punished Liverpool for it. But I will not take anything away from Liverpool they played a great match. Their mid-feild was very strong and moving but it was Milan's experience and suave playing that gave them the edge in this match. In addition, Milan were a lot more serious and focused this time around than in Istanbul. Not a very classic final or the way the Man U match was but surely very strategic and methodical by both sides. Forza Rossoneri! 20029 2007-05-24T23:26:41-04:00 1 MA mlangione Andover 29107 It was a coaching duel, to be certain. Ancelotti was genius to let the midfield slug it out. He knew that he could count on Inzaghi, Kaka, Pirlo and Seedorf for at least one or two moments of class, and Liverpool didn't have enough going forward to cut through the likes of Maldini and Nesta. The only chances Liverpool had were gaffes by Jankulovski (and one from the otherwise impeccable Nesta). Inzaghi's goal was certainly not a handball. First, it hit his upper arm. Second, his arm was tucked into his body and even if the ball had hit his lower arm, Inzaghi never moved it. Inzaghi claims to have practiced stuff like that in training over the last few weeks, and I believe him. He has so many doubters every time he scores a goal like this, but I'd say that about 30 of his 42 goals in European competitions have been like this, and I just don't put enough stock in fortune to believe that the man has gotten lucky 30 times in the world's biggest club competition! Liverpool's midfield played reasonably well (though I was disappointed once again by Gerrard), but they just didn't have what it takes in attack. Benitez was prepared to move for a forward regardless of the outcome, but Liverpool fans can take stock in the notion that a loss like this is more likely to convince the American owners that money needs to be spent in attack. 19398 2007-05-24T23:23:58-04:00 http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/265/55/thumb/image04747.jpg 5 NY newyorkerr01 Jackson Heights 26595 Hey New!!! what do u know about scandal that lets you have your own opinion??? Get your facts first and then open your mouth. 18906 77 <p>For the seventh time in club history, AC Milan is the champion of Europe. SI.com&#39;s Grant Wahl says this Champions League final won&#39;t be memorable for the game itself, but Milan is a worthy European Cup winner. Among <a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/grant_wahl/05/23/champs.react/index.html" target="_blank">his five thoughts</a>:</p><p>1.) Milan deserved to win.</p><p>2.) The one-forward formation is maddening.</p><p>3.) Andrea Pirlo is underrated class.</p><p>4.) Liverpool&#39;s wingers were abysmal.</p><p>5.) Italian soccer is majorly schizophrenic.</p><p>What are your thoughts on the game?&nbsp;</p> 2638 http://img.fannation.com/upload/user_profile/image/459/8/thumb/freedman_jonah.jpg 12 CA Jonah Freedman San Francisco 4618