I've never really like being the idea of a pundit as I'm much more comfortable being a critic. Sport pundits have to pretend that everything unfolded, if not exactly as they had imagined, at least generally according to their understanding. That's because they predict outcomes and influence bettors. I wanted to predict the outcome the Champion's League final mainly because I had a strong hunch about what would happen and I wanted to test it out. Turns out I was pretty much totally wrong.

 

The game, which was held in Athens, did not live up to its billing as rematch to the classic 2004 game in Istanbul between Liverpool and AC Milan where Liverpool came back from three goals down to win. Liverpool looked like the better team for much of the game and particularly in the first half. They pushed the issue, playing directly and capitalizing on turnovers of possession that resulted from their defensive pressure. Pennant got free in the box after picking up one such loose ball and making a one-two with Gerrard, but he couldn't get to the ball in time to have a real goal-scoring angle. His shot was low and on target but Dida got down well to it and the rebound fell to Nesta who cleared. Milan could barely string two crosses together.

Seedorf, who I said would be the difference in the match, didn’t touch the ball and when he did looked old and unsure of himself. Kaka and Pirlo got no service. The best that can be said for Milan’s first half was that their back four plus Gattuso stayed in front of Liverpool’s attackers and did not give away too many clear looks. Alonso got one after a play developed down the left side, once again through Gerrard’s work. He came running on to the ball at the top of the box with plenty of room to shoot through. With Dida moving to recover position, if Alonso had hit it well and on target, it would have been a goal. Coulda, shoulda, woulda...

I got a couple things right about the game. Liverpool’s attacking corps is underwhelming. Pennant, while fast, can’t shoot or cross. Kuyt, while a good shooter, is slow and never open. Gerrard is a very good player who played well, his pace causing problems, but Milan were very aware of his position throughout the game and shut him down effectively. Riise did not get involved in the attack, and Alonso and Mascherano sat too deep to make trouble. Zenden may as well have been a cone.

In the last minute of the half Kaka earned a free kick at the top of the box by falling over after shielding Alonso, who came in a little clumsy. Pirlo the magician stepped up and hit a free kick past the wall and into Inzaghi’s shoulder. It bounced off of Inzaghi and into the goal, at which point Pippo celebrated like it was 1999. He is a great goal scorer and can add that to the long list of goals he has scored with body parts other than leg and head. It was horrible luck for Liverpool and they looked dejected going to the locker room.

The second half, unfortunately, was more of the same only tired. The game never really opened up and Liverpool made only half-chances. When Milan struck for the second time on a great slip pass from Kaka to Inzaghi on a signature well-timed run from the striker, the game was effectively over. Liverpool looked more dejected. They were getting less and less dangerous. They brought on Crouchigol and that livened things up some, because as is his wont he won every stinking headball for the next ten minutes.
With five minutes left in the game he got to a corner at the front post and flicked it across to Kuyt who buried it, adding to his long list of meaningless goals that make his stat line acceptable if underwhelming. Liverpool charged for the next few minutes and their crowd sang You'll Never Walk Alone, but there was never a feeling that anything magic would happen. The ref blew full time a minute early, to Rafa Benitez's disgust. Maybe he was as bored as we were watching. It was the most boring 2-1 game of this magnitude I have ever seen, and all of us couldn’t help imagining what Chelsea and Man United would have done in a game like that, where the defending turned out to be as uninspired as the attacking.

To make matters slightly more boring, Milan have won that trophy a million times already and the celebration with its confetti and singing of We Are the Champions looked staged.

I can only say I'm happy for Seedorf and Inzaghi and their great year as old men. Advice to Liverpool: Buy some freakin wing players and a goal-scorer with your share of the prize money.

Below is yeserday's pundit report, which was pretty darn wrong:

I've tracked the Champion's League competition from its early rounds and it finishes today when Liverpool and AC Milan clash in Istanbul in a rematch of the 2004 final. I wanted to go on record with a prediction for the match. It's 2-0 Milan with goals by Kaka and Pippo Inzaghi. Seedorf, though, will be the difference in the match.

Milan and Liverpool both finished well back of the league champions in their respective countries this year, so it will be hard to claim that the match decides who the best team in Europe is, but the fact remains that the Champion's League is the European Championship as we know it. Liverpool is really a third place team, but AC Milan did not get a fair shake to run at crosstown rival Inter Milan for the Serie A title because of the match-fixing penalty they had to serve out at the beginning of the season.

It has been a happy year for both clubs, but I think more so for AC Milan, who have really relied on Kaka and a bunch of old men to win games. Pippo Inzaghi and Clarence Seedorf have risen to the occasion in most dramatic fashion. You might remember Clarence Seedorf playing for Ajax, Holland, and Real Madrid, remember that he and his cohort Edgar Davids formed the most athletic midfield in the world for a few years. But I think most people outside of Italy, and certainly most Americans, think of Seedorf and Davids as two really strong, fast, skillful guys with braids, not realizing that Seedorf has been, for the past ten years, one of the most intelligent men in football.

As his body has slowed down (some), his game has gotten sharper. When you watch him play today, watch how many different ways he turns, watch how he keeps his body over the ball, watch how he can pass with either foot at any given moment. Count how many balls he gives away. He is in the twilight of his career and he has moved forward on the field into a support midfield position behind the frontrunners. Sometimes he even plays drop forward, a position that hardly exists anymore but used to showcase the games best minds-think Johan Cruyff-because it allows players to see the field, to run behind the defense, and to move from sideline to sideline in search of opportunities.

In the second leg semi-final against Manchester United, Seedorf scored the game-winning goal. In the first leg, he put Kaka through twice for goals with perfectly weighted passes. Today, he'll do the same for Inzaghi.

Pippo Inzaghi is a bad finisher who has scored more goals in Europe than any of his contemporaries except Shevchenko and Van Nistlerooy. Why does that sentence make sense? Because Inzaghi, like Klinsmann before him, is a superb athlete who reads the game better than anyone else. He is what might best be termed a runner, always testing the off-sides trap, always looking to split the seams of the back four and be put clear. He also uses his remarkable fitness to show up at the near or far post every single time a teammate gets to the by-line. In short, he accumulates so many chances over the course of his good games that he may miss three wide open goals and score two. Klinsmann, similarly long-legged, was similar. Neither man has great touch and neither one likes to go at a defender from a stand still. Both will throw their bodies at any ball that could be re-directed at goal.

With Kaka, Inzaghi, and Seedorf, Milan Coach Carlos Ancelotti has an incredibly subtle and intelligent triangle for Italy World Cup hero Andre Pirlo, their creative central midfielder, to target with his passes. The operation works because Milan's back line, still improbably organized by the ancients Costacurta and Maldini on the training pitch, is incredibly organized and because Gattuso and Ambrosini are savages in the middle of the field.

But to beat great teams you have to score goals. And it's been Seedorf all year, paired telepathically with Kaka, who has made it happen.

Liverpool is not a great attacking team. They can look positively depressing going forward at times. They do have men who can score good goals, though, in Crouch, Gerrard, Alonso and Riise. For them to win, they will have to bottle the middle of the field up and shrink it by fooling Inzaghi with the offside trap. Then maybe they will score on a set piece or a fantastic cross and choke the game off. It's gotten them this far. But Liverpool's magic this year has been best placed at Anfield and I wonder if they won't feel out of sorts in Istanbul.

Check in for a match report tomorrow.