By Myles Palmer
I would be over la luna if Valencia won tonight. But they wont.
ANR regulars will recall that I said Bayern won the Champions Cup when they won 1-0 in Madrid a few weeks back.
Ive seen nothing to make me chnage my mind. A team that can go to Old Trafford and win 1-0, and go to Madrid and win 1-0 and come back from 2-0 down at Highbury, is a racing certainty to beat Valencia in Milan tonight.
Recent form is the first reason Bayern will win. The second reason is the crafty coach Ottmar Hitzfeld.
His Borussia Dortmund took on a great Juventus team in the 1997 final.
Juve were bigger, stronger, more powerful and had won it the year before and they had just won Serie A, Lippi’s seventh trophy in three years.
I fancied Juventus because they had Boksic, Vieri, Zidane behind those two, , Deschamps behind him, Di Livio on the right, Ferrara , Juliano and Montero at the back, Peruzzi in goal and Del Piero on the bench
Dortmund has smaller, skinnier players : Paulo Sosa, Heinrich, Andy Moller, Chapuisat,Sammer.
So it was a a team of light, skilful, mobile technicians against a team of six-foot bodybuilders.
I thought the bodybuilders would crush Dortmund, which they were doing for the first 29 minutes.
Then Moller hits two corners from the left. Peruzzi punches out, somebody crosses, Riedle chests it and scores. Second corner, Riedle’s power header flashes into the back of the net and Hitzfeld’s heroes go on to win 3-1 against the odds.
Tonight will be interesting if Hector Cuper plays Mendieta inside. If he puts him against Lizarazu, forget it, because Lizarazu is very dynamic and likely to be Bayern’s best forward.
If Valencia has been playing Arsenal tonight I would have advised Cuper to play Deschamps and Baraja, TWO anchormen, but Bayern are not strong down the middle, except when they dive. They are very good at conning free kicks and scoring from them.
Hitzfeld’s team tonight is quite similar in its components to his Dortmund side of 1997.
Effenberg is a strategist like Sammer, Elber is a sneaky goalpoacher like Chapuisat, Scholl is a set-piece specialist like Andy Moller.
Even the chugging Jeremies, who misses tonight through injury, is a beefier Paulo Sosa, more skilful than he looks, not just a clogger.
I don’t see Oliver Kahn letting a goal in tonight.
So I don’t see how Valencia can win.
But I wish them luck in the first European Cup final between two clubs who beat Arsenal 1-0.
23rd May 2001.