The view from Italy, by Guido Santevecchi
"Italians lose wars as if they were football matches, and football matches as if they were wars", said Sir Winston Churchill. On matters of war and politics, he was most certainly an expert. The fact is that, ever since the fall of the Roman Empire, we have been luckier at calcio than at warfare. But now it seems that, in addition to being Europe's top military power, Britain is home to its dominant football clubs. Is this real glory?
Let us have a look at the Italian sides' performances this season in the Champions League. We had four at the beginning of the campaign (and I note you use a term that we in Italy reserve for military operations - Sir Winston should have thought about that).
Lazio have been struggling for financial survival since Sergio Cragnotti, who bought the club for 100bn lire in 1992, left in 2001. Their finances have much improved since then but they remain a decent, middle-of-the-league sort of side and really had no chance.
Milan are an old team full of old glories: a band of brothers, half old Italians like Paolo Maldini and half young Brazilians such as Kaka and Pato. Everybody knew they only had the puff to play 10 games at full speed and that is what they did. Honour to Arsenal all the same.
Roma are a brilliant side. Their midfielders - Francesco Totti, Simone Perrotta, both of whom will be missing tomorrow, and Daniele De Rossi, all world champions - are outstanding. And they have Aquilani, whose shot resembles Gerrard's in its strength and devastating accuracy. I recommend Manchester United to keep more than one eye on him.
But then come Internazionale, the key to Italy's decline in Europe this season. They are the league champions, yet they field just one native player, Marco Materazzi, whose name is all too often associated with red cards (though not always deservedly so, as at Liverpool).
And therein lies the story, and the difference between the impact of foreign players on English football and on Italian. I am convinced that the overwhelming presence of foreign players dilutes the natural, Italian style of rock-like defence and a strong sense of cohesion. There was a time, when they were carrying off European Cups in the 1960s, when Inter had Giuliano Sarti, Tarcisio Burgnich, Giacinto Facchetti, Aristide Guarnieri and Armando Picchi as defenders and Sandro Mazzola and Mario Corso as forwards. Today, they have a wild bunch of international stars.
The last time Inter played Liverpool before this season was in 1965. Mazzola still remembers the Reds' fans singing You'll Never Walk Alone at Anfield. There, the score was 3-1. Before the second leg, at San Siro, Mazzola went up to the announcer's box and gave him an old Louis Armstrong recording of When The Saints Go Marchin' In. He said: "At the end of the game, when we've won 3-0, I want you to put this on." That was indeed the result. Could you imagine Zlatan Ibrahimovic doing the same thing now?
In stark contrast, the injection of foreign talent has worked to strengthen English clubs. Charismatic managers from France, Spain and Portugal have done nothing to tone down the natural aggression of the English style. But they have brought greater order and sparkle to the game - more of what we call geometrie. Above all, it seems to me that foreigners in London, Manchester and Liverpool have diluted the famous off-the-pitch excesses of English sides.
Arsenal, with no more than a couple of English players, may at first seem indistinguishable from Inter - a true expression of globalised football. But there is a difference and it is not a negligible one. London is a truly globalised city and a hub for financial markets. It is an expression of your mentality. And that mentality is not the Italian one. Which is perhaps why Inter's foreign legion is less like a disciplined platoon than a band of mercenaries, ready to concede in adversity.
Is this the right year for one of the English big four? Roma seem too lightweight and elegant. The major obstacle would appear to be Barcelona but it is still four to one: four powerful English clubs versus one Spanish one.
The only risk could come from the English superiority complex. Mazzola again: "That night at Anfield Bill Shankly took our manager, Helenio Herrera, aside and said to him: 'You've trained in Portugal. Tell me something about Benfica [the other European Cup finalists], seeing as how you guys are out of it now'. Herrera returned to the team roaring: 'You've made me look like a total fucking idiot!' Shankly had just committed a very serious mistake. By saying what he did, he recharged our batteries."
If I were in Chelsea's dressing room ahead of the game with Fenerbahce, perhaps I'd remind the players of Churchill's quip, if only to avoid a senseless, glorious charge like that of the Light Brigade at Balaclava. Better to play an orderly game with the Turks.
Guido Santevecchi is London correspondent of the Italian daily Corriere della Sera
The view from Spain, by Sid Lowe
Worryingly for the Spanish people, it seems likely that the closest the nation is going to get to this season's Champions League final is if the referee is appointed from the Iberian peninsula, as happened when Liverpool faced Milan in Istanbul.
As Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal embark on their quarter-finals tonight and tomorrow, Real Madrid, Valencia and Sevilla will be forced to watch on television. Barcelona alone are involved and they are undergoing a crisis so profound that what was initially seen as an easy tie against Schalke is suddenly being approached with trepidation.
But if the recent Champions League exits of Real Madrid and Sevilla hurt, the dismal showing of Spanish sides in the Uefa Cup somehow cuts even deeper in terms of national pride. It is all well and good having three or four behemoths - clubs with massive budgets and star names - going a long way in Europe's top competition, but the second-tier tournament is the real barometer of a country's strength in depth.
That was, at least, what the Spanish insisted last season, when the earlier departures of Real Madrid and Barcelona from the Champions League found compensation in the huge success of their clubs in the Uefa Cup, where three of the four semi-finalists were from La Liga, with Espanyol facing Sevilla at Hampden Park in the final.
This season there have been no such crumbs of comfort, no Uefa Cup success with which to paper over the cracks. Although Bolton, Everton and Tottenham only lasted one more round, that was little consolation to the Spanish, now left with only Getafe as survivors. Rather than comfort, instead there has been a recognition that something is rotten in the state of Spain, with one newspaper declaring that the time has come to "sound the alarm". The self-declared "league of stars", the greatest in the world, is in the midst of a dark age.
Real Madrid lead La Liga by a six-point margin, yet have lost five of their last nine games; they have, in fact, lost more than half of their games since the turn of the year. That could be taken as a sign of competitiveness, an indication that every club in Spain has something to offer, that every side can win on their day - proof the league is strong all the way down: certainly no strolls against Derby County.
The past decade suggests a league with more variety, a greater depth of competition than in England, where the same four clubs dominate the Champions League places season after season. While Barça and Madrid are still pre-eminent, as they have been for the best part of 50 years, Valencia and Deportivo La Coruña have each won the league in the past decade, Sevilla went into the final day of last season still in with a chance, and Celta Vigo, Betis, Real Sociedad, Mallorca, Osasuna and Zaragoza have all finished in the top four. This season Racing Santander and Atlético Madrid could yet do so too.
But few in Spain believe that is the case any more. That Real Madrid command such a lead in La Liga and yet capitulated in the Champions League tells them as much, and it has been confirmed by the fact that they have now gone out at the first knockout stage, after easy groups, in each of the past four years.
When Roma defeated Bernd Schuster's side at the Bernabéu, one headline declared: "Europe demands more" and another: "Too mediocre for Europe." "What used to be the league of stars," ran a lament in El Mundo, "is now losing ground to other leagues - and not just the Premier League, which is light years ahead in terms of economic power, attractive football and a level of competitiveness." A columnist in the sports daily As wrote: "We have been satisfied with our domestic experience but the rest of Europe, England in particular, travels at a different speed."
In fact, the Spanish have not actually been that satisfied with their domestic experience. La Liga has been fairly turgid over the past two years. As the former Real player Martín Vázquez put it in the first half of last term: "The thing about Madrid games is that nothing happens. Nothing at all."
Since the start of 2008, Madrid's early season form is long forgotten, Barça are plummeting into crisis, Valencia are a caricature of a club and Sevilla have been unable to recover properly from the death of Antonio Puerta or Juande Ramos's departure to Tottenham.
Racing Santander are fifth and on course for their best-ever finish, but even delighted Racing fans know that if their team is riding so high there must be something wrong with the rest. As a former Spain coach, Javier Clemente, puts it: "Madrid and Barça don't offer a thing." And a pessimistic editorial adds: "There's too much bad football and not enough good results, and that's the perfect recipe for Spanish football to die a death."
, this side can go places
