Sunday, 18th May 2008. Definitely one of the longest days in Italian football, and here is how fate rolled out the outcome.
07:42 AM
A quick review of the Italian newspapers confirms that today is not just another day. The football season is coming to an end. Thanks to Inter, this day has become 'D-Day’. Roma, Catania and Parma (together with Inter) will be the main participants in the games which should decide the scudetto. What’s exciting about this is that it’s not just 'D-Day’ for Roma and Inter. It is also ‘D-Day’ for Catania and Parma. Threatened by the Serie B abyss, both teams will have to play their hearts to make sure of staying in the top flight.
Apart from the thrill at the top and at the bottom of the table, much attention will also focus on whether Milan will make it to the Champions League. With 7 results out of possible 9, favouring Fiorentina, it might be that next year’s Champions League will be without Milan, who will have to play in the UEFA Cup. As we saw last Sunday nothing should be taken fore granted.
In the meantime, Juventus and Sampdoria have ended their campaign in a spectacular encounter. 3-3 was the final result. Sampdoria (together with Fiorentina) were the biggest surprises of the season. Mazarri proved to be a good manager, who besides steering his team to a European football berth, also managed to achieve what Capello didn’t and what other teams gave up on - controlling and getting the best of Cassano.
15.48
After a lovely lunch at Tracy and Brian’s, we sit down to watch the drama roll-out.
As of the end of the first half Roma are champions and AC Milan are out of the Champions League. Zapping through the channels, we can see that Inter are afraid of losing, while Roma have scored an early goal in their match against Catania.
16.57
Things have changed. Inter have finally won their 16th title. It was a close one, but thanks to two goals from Zlatan Ibrahimovic, they have won their match against Parma. In the meantime Catania levelled the score against Roma, Milan have won against Udinese and Fiorentina won against Torino.
The bottom line is that Inter didn’t manage to lose what was theirs for the past six months. Roma ended their season in second. Juventus are back in a major European Club competition. They will be joined by Fiorentina who had a fantastic league campaign.
In my view Fiorentina and Roma played the best football for most of the season. Sampdoria were the biggest surprise.
The biggest let-downs came from Milan and Lazio. Parma leave top-flight football after a long span in Serie A, which saw the team even becoming one of the best clubs in Europe.
18:58
Roma’s De Rossi believes that Inter were helped to win the title, while Spalletti, as usual stood up to his reputation of being a great manager. He said it was useless to regret the points which Roma left on their way.
Tomorrow
As from tomorrow if not from tonight, in Italy, we’ll be hearing about who should and who should not be part of the group Donadoni will call for the European Championships. Cassano and Del Piero will surely be part of the discussion…but until that happens, one can’t not think of the biggest appointment in European Club football which will take place this week... the UEFA Champions League final.