It looks like Bernard McCarthy (May 1) managed to find a little fly in the humble pie he had to eat for passing snide remarks on Italian football. Some of us never learn, do they?

This time, the source of Mr McCarthy's dissatisfaction (or satisfaction - it is difficult to surmise which feeling possesses him at the moment) seems to be the thought that Inter did not field one single Italian player in the team that ousted Barcelona to make it through to the Champions League Final.

Indeed, unlike the Italian national football team that won their fourth World Cup and are still reigning World Champions, Italian players rarely feature in the Inter line-up.

The Inter coach, too, is not Italian, just like the coach of the English national football team, but this makes little difference in the case of Inter because they never thought of themselves as God's gift to the game, which is much more than can be said about the English national football team.

There is one little detail that seems to escape Mr McCarthy though - the Inter team is owned by an Italian and can, therefore, call itself Italian, much to the satisfaction of many an Inter fan and the envy of many others. I am sure he gets the drift of what I am trying to say, without the need to use up more column inches.