On 28 May 2003, Juventus faced AC Milan in a tight Champions League final. Marco Jackson takes looks back over the match at Old Trafford in Manchester.
They say that the best things come to those who wait and, while that may be true, it is not exclusively the case.
Such was the situation in the 2003 European Cup final, in which Juventus met Milan.
Italy had experienced dominance in the competition before, but not for some time. In the early 1960s, the Rossoneri exchanged titles with city rivals Inter. Though they roamed the competition together as champions, with Bologna added one year, they never met, not least in the final.
Milan remain the last team to retain the trophy, at the turn of the 1990s, but one great team does not equivocate a nation’s superiority and though the decade was golden for Serie A, it did not equate to regular European Cup glory.
By 2003, the landscape looked different. Three teams in the semi-finals is a fairly powerful statement, and with the two Milanese giants were drawn together, Serie A looked imperious.
Three years after Spain’s La Liga demonstrated itself as Real Madrid swept aside Valencia, the meeting of Milan and Juventus represented Serie A’s chance to showcase itself across the world.
It is fair to say, on this occasion, that the match did not live up to the billing.
Much could be told about the match from the symbolism before it started. Milan, formed by English immigrants, held up cards into the Old Trafford night projecting the flag of St George. In Manchester, in England, they were at home.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GaJxpmiRK4[/youtube]
Their team started the game accordingly, and undoubtedly produced the best of the early chances, though found Gianluigi Buffon in stellar form.
In the Juventus goalkeeper, they found a man inspired, but then again, that could have been anticipated before kickoff.
When the teams walked out, headed by Buffon and Paolo Maldini, there was a positive atmosphere. The two friends shared a joke as they passed the trophy – one that was familiar to Maldini, yet still eludes Buffon.
Both were smiling during the game, too. Buffon’s saves, particularly early on, were phenomenal. Meanwhile Maldini’s discipline and marshalling of a potent forward line of Alessandro Del Piero and David Trezeguet, was typically flawless. He was voted man of the match.
With a pair of defensive players the undoubted top performers, goals were always going to be hard to come by. Andriy Shevchenko thought he had scored, only to see his goal ruled out for offside. Antonio Conte headed against the bar after entering as a substitute. Andrea Pirlo, later to become a Juventus hero, hit the woodwork for Milan.
In truth, chances were scarce in a game that saw both teams cancel one another out. The game ebbed and flowed, but at no point did the tide threaten to wash either away. Italy is no stranger to Champions League final penalty shootouts, having seen four on its own fields, and this game felt destined to go that way almost from the off.
Nine shots at goal throughout the game was no advert for Serie A, but both teams were aiming to win rather than advertise.
A classical piece that builds into a crescendo can be the most emotionally potent of all, and a penalty shootout is the most dramatic denouement that can be offered from a football match. In that sense, the final was perfect.
The tension, borne from more than 100 years of competition between the two who met in a 1901 Italian championship semi-final, cranked up minute by minute for over two hours.
Every moment and every near miss carried with it pages of narrative in the way that a game that games between sides who rarely meet could never do. The players echoed down the years, each potential match-winner heralding back to a shadow from their clubs past.
Maybe that is the important difference that the one-nation finals bring. They do not operate as an billboard for the league of their participants, but rather offer a bigger sandpit for age old squabbles.
It was Milan who emerged on top that night, victorious in a penalty shootout that crammed more twists into its brief tale than the game before it. David Trezeguet saw his kick saved first off, putting the Rossoneri in a box seat they relinquished when Buffon stopped efforts from both Clarence Seedorf and Kakha Kaladze.
With the advantage now at the feet of the Bianconeri, Marcelo Zalayeta and Paolo Montero both missed, giving Shevchenko the opportunity to win the game.
He stepped up, wrong-footed Buffon and wheeled away in jubilation.
Saturday evening will bring another one nation final at the home ground of the team who won that night. Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid might beat Juventus and Milan for entertainment, but they will struggle to do so for spectacle.
