Milan's View
Champions League Preview: Rockin' Reds
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Itfs easy to say Milan will win, right? But after having seen the frankly frightening catenaccio employed by Liverpool and the risks the Rossoneri ran in Eindhoven, one has to be cautious. Donft forget that a Final is always a Final, so anything can happen and an early goal could decide how the rest of the match pans out.
Not much changes for Milan. They know that they will play their usual style of football with Marcos Cafu pushing, Kaka creating, Andrea Pirlo organising, Andriy Shevchenko scoring and Dida saving. For Liverpool a goal scored, like the one they put past the much stronger Chelsea side, changes everything. That is when they can clam up and rely on the counter-attack, taking full advantage of opponents who are afraid to lose in a Final.
This is all bar talk, of course, because the field of play can give us other answers we werenft expecting. It depends on innumerable factors including experience. This Milan side has barely changed from two years ago and has the extra bonus of Hernan Crespo, Cafu, Kaka and Jaap Stam. Nobody in the Liverpool squad has played in a Championsf League Final before. The UEFA Cup won by Gerard Houllier is another matter entirely in terms of tension, prestige and motivation. This means that a lack of experience can affect performance in this setting - such as Bayer Leverkusen against Real Madrid back in 2002.
Liverpool can take advantage of the fact they are nowhere near as physically tired as Milan. For the last two months, practically every game has been a Final for the San Siro giants who just lost out to Juventus in the title race. The Reds meanwhile have never really been in the Premiership title race from the moment they drew their opening game 1-1 at Tottenham. Liverpool have lost the fight to even capture fourth place and they know they must win in Istanbul to have any chance of winning their plea to UEFA to defend the trophy.
So how about the quality of the two squads? How many Liverpool players can turn a match? Steven Gerrard and now Luis Garcia, but the rest are mere foot soldiers placed strategically on the field of battle. These are honest hard-workers, nothing more. Milan are a multi-national conglomerate full of stars, bought on the criteria that ewefll buy a few players, but make sure theyfre world class.f In other words, youfd never find a Steve Finnan or an Antonio Nunez at the San Siro, not even on the bench. For those who donft know the usual Rossoneri reserves, they are Christian Abbiati, Alessandro Costacurta, Massimo Ambrosini, Kakha Kaladze, Giuseppe Pancaro, Jon Dahl Tomasson and Manuel Rui Costa.
Quality does shine through in the end and, if football is the only sport that doesnft guarantee the best team wins, then at least it gives you a good chance of dominating the individual duels around the pitch. This is why the big clubs rarely take the wrong approach in the key games ? they are there to win. Liverpool are deservedly in the Final, but still have a lot to prove, whereas Milan merely have to reconfirm their pedigree. Seven Finals in 16 years must surely mean something.
We now move on to tactics. Milan will probably shelve the Christmas tree formation, if only because a defeat with this system would spell the end for Carlo Ancelottifs time at the club, having already earned some stern reprimands from patron Silvio Berlusconi and de facto President Adriano Galliani. So wefll see the same 4-3-1-2 that has been employed in almost every game bar against PSV.
If everyone has understood Milanfs style, strength and star power, then few realise what Benitez does with his players during the week ? apart from studying how best to keep opponents away from their goal. Perhaps attacking manoeuvres are merely optional and left to chance? Obviously that is an exaggeration, but watching them play often pushes us to bring out that kind of joke. Itfs difficult to see a decent forward move where Liverpool are concerned, as they push without every really getting a shot on goal.
We understand that injuries have not helped, but Milan are accustomed to facing outfits like this every week, teams who man-mark, put eight players around their own penalty area and close up all available spaces. The Rossoneri rarely lose their patience and keep attacking until the last minute, knowing full well that sooner or later the goal will come. There is no other team in Europe at the moment with the same confidence and quality throughout the squad.
They pass the ball around constantly in a bid to find room, whether with crossfield passes between Pirlo and Kaka, down the flanks through Cafu, with individual runs by Kaka, Sheva and Seedorf, poaching from Crespo and Shevchenko, or the set-pieces of Pirlo. The team is relaxed in its own skin and knows that even defeat in Istanbul would not be a disaster, as there is always next year. Liverpool know theyfll probably never find themselves in this situation again. This is not a detail to be overlooked. The anxiety to get a result could well be detrimental to the English side rather than the favourites.
There is also an issue wrapped up in money and image. The Championsf League Final signifies, even in the event of defeat, an impressive influx of cash from television rights to ticket sales and sponsors, regardless of the UEFA cash prize for a victory. Winning it means another two such lucrative encounters ? the European Supercup facing CSKA Moscow and the Inter-Continental Cup. Both have always been real money-spinners with the Japanese marketing boom.
Milan take a great interest in their international image and this is why they consider the Championsf League an increasingly important element of their season, Liverpool havenft been able to choose between domestic and European titles over the last 20 years.
Carlo Ancelotti has refused to dwell on his side's stuttering passage into the Final at the expense of PSV. He says the Premiership side, in their first European Cup Final since the start of the Championsf League in 1992-93, would offer a different kind of test. Milan's defence, hitherto outstanding in the competition with seven successive clean sheets, was run ragged by Guus Hiddinkfs energetic team. "Liverpool will be a completely different game," says the Milan Coach. "Their semi-final against Chelsea showed they are capable of keeping a clean sheet. They are a defensive side and so will be very hard to beat."
The Merseysiders stand on the verge of what would be an incredible triumph against all odds - one which, according to Gerrard, would write another piece of history and put the names of the Liverpool players high on the great club's role of honour. "There is no doubt we have the chance to become legends at the club - and we want to grab that," said the Redsf skipper. "We have been disappointing domestically this season. Really I don't think any of us thought about actually reaching the Final this year. We have been underdogs from the start. But we have produced some great form in the Championsf League, and when we beat Olympiakos we started to get a feeling we could do it."
These are momentous times at Anfield, with the European heyday of the '70s and '80s brought vividly back to life by the defeat of Chelsea. Manager Rafa Benitez - in his first season - wants to build a real dynasty on Merseyside, just like Bill Shankly did in setting the blueprint for domestic and European domination over two decades.
So, what can we draw from all of this? That the first team to score will win, as always. Milan always score, Liverpool don't...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Words: Dominique Antognoni
