Milan win Lazio's title.
The ironic headline in yesterday's Rome daily, Il Messaggero, said it all. When AC Milan beat Perugia 21 on Sunday's last day of the Italian season to clinch their 16th league title, it was hard to escape the sensation that this was not so much the title that AC Milan had won as more the title that Lazio had thrown away.
Watching Milan celebrate on Sunday night, my mind went back to last January and a morning spent at the Milan training ground of Milanello. On that occasion, Milan coach Alberto Zaccheroni was categoric. In his first season with Milan, he said, his primary objective was to slowly build a new side that in the years to come would restore Milan to its habitual place on top of Italian and European soccer:
"We are not looking to win the league title. It's more important that we get certain things right for the future and that we qualify for the Champions League. Then, if the chance of battling for the title comes along, well that's a bonus . . ."
Such words made sense. For a start the cautious Milan attitude was a season long constant factor that helped keep the pressure off and allow his side move into the whitehot thick of the championship battle of the last month almost without realising it. Secondly, Zaccheroni, like the rest of us, knew that at least two of his major rivals, Lazio and Parma, were better equipped to win this season's title.
The fact that in the end Milan ran out the winners says as much about the failings of their rivals as about their own undoubted strengths. Put simply, both Parma and Lazio failed to win all important games (both failed to beat Milan) at all important moments.
It is true that Milan had an advantage on their rivals. Their last two disastrous seasons (11th and 10th respectively in Serie A) left them with Wednesday evenings free of engagements. While Lazio, Fiorentina and Parma (respectively second, third and fourth and all Champions League bound) were involved in European and Italian Cup struggles, Milan watched on TV.
Parma pulled off a spectacular double, defeating Olympique Marseilles in the UEFA Cup final just one week after they had beaten Fiorentina in the Italian Cup final. Lazio, likewise, went all the way in the Cup Winner's Cup, winning the last ever edition of that competition when beating Spanish side Mallorca at Villa Park, Birmingham last Wednesday night.
The distractions of European and Italian Cup competitions certainly offer a partial explanation as to why Milan finished the season by far the strongest side in the land, winning their final seven games in a row.
Lazio were seven points clear of Milan with eight games to play at the beginning of April. However, they effectively lost the title battle in three consecutive April games against Milan, AS Roma and Juventus. Held to a 0-0 home draw by a defensive Milan, Lazio then went on the defensive on the eve of their city derby with Roma.
Lazio players told the media during the build-up to what has now become far and away Italian soccer's most keenly contested derby, that, sure, Roma can win the derby but we will win the league title. That mental approach seemed wrong. In the derby itself, Lazio were never at the races, run off the park in a 3-1 defeat in which the less accomplished Roma were far hungrier for a win.
That derby defeat struck a fatal blow at Lazio's title prospects. Not only did it undermine confidence and generate tension - as exemplified by the Lazio players' subsequent media blackout - but it also left them without their entire first choice defence for their next match against Juventus.
A typically bitter derby ended with two Lazio players, Alessandro Nesta and Sinish Mihajlovic, sent off and another defender, Giuseppe Pancaro, booked and thus due to sit out the Juventus game.
Deprived of their first choice defence, Lazio then crashed 3-1 at home to Juventus. In three games, their seven point lead over Milan had been whittled down to just one point. The all important points were dropped when drawing 1-1 away to Fiorentina.
