SCUDETTO STILL ELUDES INTER
The finishing line has been in sight for many weeks now for Internazionale, but like a marathon pace-setter with a ribbon phobia, they are making hard work of the finishing straight. Ever since feebly crashing out of the Champions League to Liverpool earlier this year, they have been a side seriously lacking confidence or character, and last weekend's humiliating failure to crown their Scudetto charge with a derby win over AC Milan summed up their recent failings.
The same can certainly be said for this weekend's 2-2 draw with Siena. Patrick Vieira got things underway at the San Siro with an 11th minute goal, and even when Massimo Maccarone cancelled it out, Mario Barotelli restored Inter's lead just before half-time. However, Houssine Kharja made it 2-2 with 20 minutes to go and when the home side won an 80th minute penalty, instead of coolly using it as the perfect opportunity to seal the victory and to win the league, they imploded.
Regular penalty-taker Julio Cruz was all set to take it, but was overruled by Marco Materazzi, needing to be restrained by his team-mates from confronting the Italian defender. He was right to be angry too, as Materazzi then stepped up and had his spot-kick saved by former Arsenal keeper Alex Manninger. Siena held on for the draw and Roma's 2-1 win at home to Atalanta means that the Serie A title race goes right to the wire with just one point between the two sides going into next weekend's final matches.
Needless to say, a certain Inter defender has had a few apologies to make, particularly after club president Massimo Moratti was caught on camera saying 'Materazzi lost us the game': "I heard about that, but in all honesty I think at that moment every single Inter fan hurled some kind of abuse at me," he said. "This is part of the sport and the sense of disappointment it can give you, so I can't complain. Perhaps with hindsight I should have left it to Cruz. I apologised to him afterwards."
Roberto Mancini was not best pleased: "The penalty takers were Cruz, Balotelli and then Materazzi. You can miss penalties, unfortunately, so Julio could've made a mistake too. We'll never know. Sometimes you feel like taking the penalty and you are not the taker. You feel it is right. We really could've done without that incident, but this is football and these things happen. Tonight the disappointment will pass and we will start preparing for Parma."
While Inter face Parma, Roma will be at Catania, and Francesco Totti is looking forward to it: "It's going to be an incredible 90 minutes. We have nothing to lose, so we just have to focus on winning in Catania and waiting for the verdict from Parma," he said. Daniele de Rossi agreed: "Unfortunately we are continuing to look up at Inter from below and realise Catania will be tough. It's going to be two 'real' games again and that is what we wanted. Nobody deserves the Scudetto as much as Roma this season, but we are duelling with a great side, even if they have rather lost their heads."
BARCELONA GO INTO MELTDOWN
Inter may have lost their heads, but Barcelona seem to have lost absolutely everything after a topsy-turvy few weeks. Last weekend, they put their Champions League dismay behind them with a 6-0 thrashing of Valencia, but crashed back down to earth again with a humiliating 4-1 defeat to Real Madrid on the night that their arch-enemies celebrated winning La Liga, with Frank Rijkaard announcing afterwards that he'll be leaving in the summer.
Things seemed to be getting back to normal yesterday when they went 2-0 up to Mallorca at the Nou Camp through Thierry Henry and Samuel Eto'o, but their fragile confidence disappeared after Borja Valero pulled one back in the 68th minute. Further goals from Pierre Webo and Daniel Gonzalez capped an incredible 3-2 win for the visitors, while Edmilson was sent off in the last minute to compound Barca's misery on a night that saw just 39,298 hankie-waving fans bother to turn up to watch Rijkaard's final home game in charge.
"It was a sad night for the team and also for me," he said. "Certainly I did not expect such a difficult end to the season. As a sportsman I expected other things. This suffering in this final phase is almost unbearable. It is tough, tough, tough. Barca are a great team and must always play to win important things. When it is not like that you know that the public will not react well. The team has to be stronger than the circumstances, and here they haven't been."
Villarreal's 2-0 win over Espanyol means that they are now 10 points clear of Barca in second place, while Atletico Madrid secured their Champions League qualification with a 1-0 win over Deportivo la Coruna. Champions Madrid drew 2-2 with Real Zaragoza, while Valencia followed up their win in midweek with a 5-1 thrashing of Levante, helped by a hat-trick from David Villa, who is surely set to leave the club this summer after their miserable season.
AND THE REST...
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