Gold, grace and farewells

Inter Milan won their first European title since 1965, and their first Champions League title after a fully deserved 2-0 victory against Bayern Munich at Madrid's Santiago Barnabeu Stadium.Personally, I watched the match in a farm in eastern Venezuela, not wanting to miss what was one of the matches of the year, but expectedly disappointing...
Expectedly disappointing, because Jose Mourinho's Inter played as brilliantly boring with a controlled defensive and amazing attackign power, where the Argentinean Diego Milito shined above all others with his two goals.
Inter have won everything, and are undoubtfully the best team in the world, in spite of the fact that their way of playing is not so entertaining as that of FC Barcelona: Inter closed off from Bayern's superior possession, and when they didn't, Julio Cesar was there with spectacular saves (any more doubt about Brazilian goalkeepers....?).
Besides Milito and Inter's defense, Bayern Munich played a great match where they might have deserved better. But the true victors were the Bayern Munich team and fans: they immediately recognised they had lost to a better team, and I think that seldomly has a team and fans taken a defeat with such grace.
A great team loses with grace, and Bayern Munich is, in that sense, the greatest club in the world.

The most talked about thing about the final was José Mourinho who is, - according to numerous rumours- , apparently to be staying in Madrid, as coach of Real Madrid. His attitude at the match seemed to confirm the rumours, as he amid the celebrations of the victory seemed to be sayign goodbye, although this is all hard to tell because of Mourinho's showmanship.
However, he is undoubtfully the best and most charismatic coach in the world, and if he goes to the Spanish giants, it will surely bound to be interesting.

That said, the night belongs to Inter and to all great Inter and Bayern Munich fans, who all deserved to win!

The Milano derby

One of the greatest derby's of world football took place yesterday in Milano, namely that between Inter Milan and AC Milan. This one had been looked forward to as Inter's lead in the Serie A had seemed to be threatened by an AC Milan side that lately has started playing outstanding, in particular Ronaldinho who seems to have flourished like in his younger days. However, today was all about Inter Milan, who truly showed who the best team is; in the first minutes they overran AC Milan, and the Argentinean Diego Milito brought Inter ahead. Even though Wesley Sneijder was shown a very strange red card, Inter continued to dominate and the Macedonian player Goran Pandev brought Inter ahead 2-0 on a beautiful free kick.
In the last minutes of the match AC Milan was given a penalty as Lucio was thrown out for Inter Milan. However, in front of his countryman Julio Cesar, Ronaldinho missed the penalty.
The title seems on its way to Inter who with this victory cements their leadership of the Serie with 9 points ahead of AC Milan on second place.