And a word on the vanquished

Italian press play the blame game

James Richardson examines the search for a scapegoat in the wake of Milan's astonishing capitulation to Liverpool in Istanbul and discovers the club's owner Silvio Berlusconi is "2738% certain" his manager, Carlo Ancelotti will stay

Friday May 27, 2005

You've got to feel sorry for Milan. One of Europe's truly great clubs, they dominated Wednesday's Champions League showdown for 113 of it's 120 minutes, only to see themselves defeated by Jerzy Dudek's Bruce Grobbelaar impression. Talk about adding insult to injury.

Honour to Liverpool and all that, but naturally, the flurry of second half goals that manager Carlo Ancelotti called "our seven minutes of madness" dominated the reaction to the game in Italy. "It's Milan dissolution!" read Il Messagero's front page, and that was one of the cheerier ones. "When Paolo Maldini scored, it seemed the work of destiny," wrote their bewildered correspondent. "There's been a Maldini in each of Milan's finals, starting with Papa Cesare in 1963. But this time fate was not on his side".

"Milan The Heartbreakers," mourned the Corriere Dello Sport. "You can lose the title, but not like this!" Meanwhile, a wild-eyed Gazzetta Dello sport led with "Awake In A Nightmare!"

Yup, in Italy it wasn't so much Liverpool's inc-Red-ible comeback as Milan's Red'n'Blackout. "Milan made the worst mistake of all" explained the Gazzetta. "They thought it was all over at half-time. They forgot they had English opponents and the English never give up". There was more of this bulldog spirit business over in La Repubblica, who opined: "Liverpool emerged from the wreckage of the first half like Churchill amidst the rubble of wartime London, hand still clenched in a victory V".

Lozenges aside, Italy is asking who's to blame for this collapse? Milan's goalie Dida bears some responsibility for the second goal, and European Footballer of the Year Andriy Shevchenko should certainly have put the game away in the dying minutes of extra time ("I could take that shot 10,000 times, and it'd go in every time," rued Andriy after the final whistle). But the man who cops the real heat in the papers is manager Carlo Ancelotti. "Questions will be asked of him," warned La Gazzetta, helpfully posing two crackers themselves. Firstly, why did Ancelotti delay so long before reacting to Liverpool's half-time switch to a five-man midfield? It was, the paper argued, a move which "allowed them to cut Milan in two". Secondly, given Milan's much vaunted Big Game experience, why do they lose the plot so often?

It was little more than a year ago, after all, that Milan set the previous benchmark for self-destructing in a European campaign when they threw away a 4-1 first leg lead in that quarter final with Deportivo, losing at La Coruna 4-0, and crashing out of the competition in the process. Ancelotti rejects the comparison however. "The Liverpool game was very different game to past matches," he explained. "This time we were in control from start to finish, apart from those seven minutes - but that's football. Seven minutes is enough to cost you the Champions League."

They may yet cost Ancelotti more than that, because patience with him is running thin (warning: disappointing pun ahoy). Like Istanbul itself, Milan is now divided by the "boss-for-us" question. Owner Silvio Berlusconi made his thoughts clear pre-game when he warned that defeat against Liverpool "would make this an unsatisfactory season", and we can all imagine what that means (think: floor sliding back and spittle forming in corners of piranha's mouths). Still, barely had Milan touched down in Italy on Thursday than Milan's vice-president was declaring that "Carlo will stay, I'm 2738% certain of it".

It's an impressive figure, but the papers still suspect a change is on the way. As the Corriere puts it: "this was too big a blow for everything to just stay the same." Ancelotti's reaction was clam: "We'll see come September whose bench I'm sitting on," he mused. His habit of finishing second (and seconds, by the looks of him) has already cost him another top level job at Juventus, but this time his greatest ally may be the lack of suitable replacements - Milan have long had the hots for Barcelona boss Frank Rijkaard, but the Catalans are unlikely to let him go. Another mooted replacement, Carlo's current sidekick and former Milan teammate, Mauro Tbuttoti, is still deemed too inexperienced.

But even if the papers are full of doom and gloom, Milan have much to be proud of post-Liverpool. They laid on a masterly performance for almost all of Wednesday's match, ironically shining much brighter this time in defeat than they did in victory two years ago at Old Trafford. For a team that spoke before the game of the importance of entertaining their audience, that's some consolation. It's not like a winning the Champions League trophy or anything, but at least it's something."

-- "Luis Garcia laughed off suggestions that a Spanish referee would help the Reds in the CL final."