MILAN: CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FAILURE, ZACCHERONI SACKED

Things had begun to look bad for Zaccheroni ever since making it through to the quarter finals became an uphill climb. Alberto Zaccheroni, the team manager from Romagna who in just two years had given the team a first and a third place in the Italian league is no longer the coach of the red and blacks. Fatal for him was the Cup elimination after a home draw with the Spanish squad, Deportivo, a result that was not good enough to qualify Milan among the first eight in the European competition. Big disappointments are both the team’s early exit from the competition and the dismissal of Zaccheroni, an expert in his field but with one enormous fault - he never managed to get on with President Silvio Berlusconi. As we said, the divorce had been in the air for some time, especially after the team began to collect a series of negative results. But behind these events a logic exists and the puzzle is being gradually put together. Terim sent away from Florence because he already had an agreement with Milan. Zaccheroni already verbally dismissed and who looks all set to go to Inter. And finally, Lippi looking on, ready to exploit any changes of mind. Everything fits, all neat and tidy, after this last coup de théâtre. The world of soccer always in upheaval - games of tactics played in advance and, in the end the soccer fiction moves take on concrete form. That a player or coach switch from one team to another within the same city would have caused a revolution years ago. Now, it has become almost natural. Anything goes as long as the Club comes out the winner. But what is really strange, amusing, are those spiteful little acts often produced by similar situations. Moratti already wanted Zaccheroni two years ago. He took just a while too long to think it over and the coach ended up at Milan. This squad won the championship, the Inter project failed with Lippi as well and Tardelli arrived. Meanwhile Berlusconi decided, at the beginning of 2000/2001, whatever the results, that as and from next year, his team would have another manager. How else can we explain, given the excellent purchasing campaigns of the past, the fact that mediocre players were bought like Roque Junior, Julio Cesar, Comandini and Redondo, bitterly criticised at the end of their career even by the red and black supporters. Of course, the balance of accounts also has to be taken into consideration, but Milan could do more on the market. And those who think badly believe that behind all this is a precise plan to force Zaccheroni to pack his bags. That will not happen, because Zaccheroni is a proud man who believes in his project. When this starts to shake however and large cracks appear, also caused by a series of injuries, the Cesena coach accepts the Moratti offer. This fresh attraction on the part of the Inter president however is subject to just one condition. The former red and black coach can only come if he is not sacked by the city “cousins”. The image of the black and blues would suffer from hiring a coach just thrown out by the neighbours. And so here is the last dirty trick, the very easy spiteful turn that was in the air and which, to some extent, the Inter managers already fended off at the end of last week, by confirming Tardelli for next season as well. Zaccheroni sacked, to make room, for the time being, for the duo Cesare Maldini - Tassotti, but with Terim already with an Istanbul-Milan ticket in his pocket. This was the last piece of a series of hidden manoeuvres that the light of the sun, meaning the championship in progress, would have disturbed. But should it not be the opposite way round? Should not all these quarrels and pub brawls be disturbing factors of the championship under way? By now the soccer equation overturns everything and the chance is that this modernisation, this keeping up with time, the market and open frontiers, and everything this brings with it will not necessarily result in improvement...