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More winners... and a loser

As predicted, Zenith have won the UEFA Cup, beating Rangers in the final, to become the second Russian team to win the cup in the most recent history of the competition. Zenith had a series of factors which were an advantage. Above all was the fact they had just started their football season, while the Scottish team was at the end of a strenuous one.

It was a pity that the evening was marred by violence. I had said that I won't be highlighting violent misbehaviour as I prefer to celebrate what is beautiful in the world of sport.

The violent incidents which occurred during the night shouldn't tarnish the efforts taken by the British authorities to seriously combat hooliganism. England transformed itself in the past two decades by showing a zero-tolerance attitude towards the idiots who think that football is the theatre where one can violently vent his frustrations.

One hopes that this incident won't be a preview of what might happen this week in Moscow... and that Russians won't find it a good reason to take their revenge... let's hope that sport and football prevail and not lose to violence.

Bionic or natural

In what can be seen as a controversial decision; the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned a decision taken by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and lifted the ban imposed on South African athlete Pistorius. This Paralympian 400m runner had been barred from all competitions involving able-bodied athletes because of claims that the artificial legs he uses give him an unfair advantage.

I am for inclusivity, however I don't think the decision taken by the CAS was right.

On the other hand one can't but praise Pistorius. This is real life story, where a person, rather than succumbing to the problems deriving from amputations, made it a point to transform those challenges in opportunities and now he has a right to run in the Olympics. He said that his target is 2012 Olympics in London. Looking forward to the event, as we can see nothing is impossible.

Roma

Roma should win the Italian Serie A. Will they? That's a question that we'll only know on Sunday afternoon. Inter should not win this league for so many reasons.

But apart from that, it was interesting to read that telephone tapping was targeting Inter players and officials. One of Inter's shareholders and the person behind the official sponsor of the team, is also one of the owners of TIM, the Italian telephony company, from which the transcripts of calciopoli were leaked and after which Inter where given their first ½ league in 20 years.

Now that some players and the manager have fallen out of favour with the club, could it be that the same people at the top are leaking stories on conversations between players, the coach and an alleged criminal, to have more grounds to get rid of them? Once again....nothing is really impossible....

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Comments

Paul Borg (on 18/5/08)
In the past, the fact that Russian clubs "had just started their football season" was used as an explanation as to why clubs like Zenith never made it to the finals of UEFA competitions. Zenith started their commitments in the UEFA Cup in mid-August of 2007 (2nd qualifying round) and, apart from January, have played 2 games per month since then in this competition. One must also remember that the UEFA Cup is not played over one game! The main advantage of Zenith was that they found the sponsors to get great players and a great coach.

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