Before last night there had only been two great performances in the Champions League. Monaco’s smashing of Deportivo 8-3 set a new and possibly irreplicable level for the sheer volume of goals achievable amongst top class teams, and Arsenal’s 5-1 battering of Inter Milan suggested that a combination of determination and class can overcome even the biggest obstacles.
But last night, the holders AC Milan showed what it means to win this toughest of competitions. In an extraordinary 6 minute barrage before and after the half-time whistle, Milan simply ripped Deportivo La Coruna –a fine side – to shreds. Kaka, the young Brazilian who is perhaps the most talented young player in the world, scored two excellent goals, whilst Shevchenko and Pirlo decorated the game with two magnificent finishes. Right there and then, when Pirlo’s free kick sailed into the top left hand corner, the tie was finished and Milan’s place in the semi-final, and probably the final as well was guaranteed. It is a benchmark which Arsenal, along with Chelsea and Madrid, will have to strive to live up to – otherwise the trophy will likely remain in the San Siro another year.
What was it about Milan’s performance that was so impressive? Famously, in the last month Carlo Ancelotti their manager has had to contend with perhaps an even more overwhelming act of interference by his club’s chairman than poor Claudio Ranieri could even dream of. Silvio Berlusconi, AC’s owner, president of the largest Italian media company, and, of course, Italian prime minister, raged against what he saw as ill-advised tactics by Ancelotti in playing Kaka and Rui Costa behind Andrei Shevchenko. He wanted two strikers. This 4-3-2-1 which Ancelotti favoured was so ineffective that Milan were only 7 points clear in Serie A – but what Berlusconi says goes or the manager does, and so Phillippo Inzaghi was recalled to the first XI. Initially, Milan had looked uncomfortable with this change – although their lead in the league stretched – but last night it all came good.
Milan’s midfield of Pirlo, Gattuso and Seedorf playing behind Kaka is a classic unit in Italian football, as capable of sitting back into a seven man defence as it is of launching devastating attacks en masse. Contributions from all four last night were memorable, and although Kaka inevitably takes the plaudits, it was perhaps Pirlo, still relatively unheralded outside Italy, who impressed the most. Having just scored, he collected the ball on the edge of his box and launched a run down the left, covering 40 yards before flicking the most delicate of sand-wedges into the box. Inzaghi’s header did not match the invention that went before it, but it showed all the mixture of fight, power and grace which is required to win this thing in one foul swoop.
Much has been made this season of Arsenal’s ability to turn defence into attack and rightly so. Pirlo and the rest last night shows just how concentrated we need to be in those transformations to survive right through to Gelsenkirchen on May 26.
I’m full of hope however, because watching a team with as fierce a reputation for stifling games as Milan in full flow was a vital confirmation that we are playing the right game. Over the recent months Arsenal have been more prone to play well in short spells than ever before. Goals come in unstoppable purple patches, then the team concentrates on defensive possession, containing the opposition, holding. That is no more or less than Milan did yesterday, and like us, they went through various scares at the back which the despondent La Coruna players should have made more of.
In the absence of Alessandro Nesta, Milan’s backline had a combined age of about 4050. Cafu, Costacurta, Maldini and Pancaro are no spring chickens, but all ooze the nous of top class experience – nobody more so than Cafu (34) and Maldini (36) who defy the years as only genuinely great players can.
That of course is what we lack in comparison with the Rossonerri – sheer experience. Clarence Seedorf, recently linked with a summer move to us in exchange for Ljungberg, has won the Champions League at three different clubs. Cafu has played in three World Cup finals and won 2. Maldini has won the Champions League some 5 times, has more international caps and European games behind him than Ashley Cole and Kolo Toure have had hot dinners.
There is simply no way we can replicate that depth of achievement no matter the World Cup winners medals in our team – most of which were won from the bench. Arsenal are the coming team of European football, whilst Milan and Madrid are the aging greats, full of legends. Our legends are yet to be made, but you can’t help but feel their time is coming.
Will it be this year however? Well, first up it’s Chelsea. I said before the league and cup double header a month ago, that the struggle would be in cutting off Lampard’s route from midfield to goal. Tonight that same task has a second part: as Wenger’s rightly said, this time we have to control Damien Duff as well. Duff is a massive player, fully justifying his £17million price tag each time he plays. Control Duff and Lampard and this tie is ours – so how do we do it?
I expect Ranieri to try and take us on tonight – with the hanging judge’s sentence of Kenyon’s pronouncements and Abramovich’s silence on his head, Ranieri has nothing to lose in abandoning caution, and playing Duff and Gronkjaer as genuine wingers, with Lampard and Makelele in the middle. In other words they’ll try and play like we do – which might favour us even more than the compact and widthless diamond formation on which Chelsea foundered last month. For all Duff’s qualities, Chelsea simply cannot out play Arsenal in an open game – and particularly over two legs. They may well win one of the ties, but they will have to be supremely good to brush us aside – because the only time they’ve done that this year was against Wolves back in September.
Their best result remains the 4-0 away win at Lazio, coming the night after our win in the San Siro. But Lazio – a club in deep disarray – played most of that game with ten men. Arsenal however, have reached the heights on many occasions this season – and if we can get even close to our top level, Chelsea will not beat us.
Milan has shown us what we need to do, but conversely, they’ve also shown that we have nothing to fear.