As the European campaign ends, the speculation over next season and the World Cup is gaining momentum. Ian Hawkey sums it all up The last moments of the 2009/2010 European club season appeared eerily reminiscent of the first. On Saturday night, Jose Mourinho all but announced he would from now on be calling the Santiago Bernabeu stadium, where his Inter Milan had just triumphed in the Champions League, his new home. Ten months earlier, amid much fanfare, Cristiano Ronaldo, another self-assured Portuguese, had been presented at this very site to Real Madrid fans as one of their own.
So, as Italian club football regained the most prestigious trophy in the club game, it lost to Spanish football one of its stars, Mourinho. Rewind nine months and the same thing was happening in the last summer transfer market when Inter sold Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Barcelona and AC Milan let Kaka go to Real. The notion that Serie A was thus being disarmed turned out to be exaggerated. Inter grew without Ibrahimovic and with Mourinho reshaping the team in the style he favours, slingshot counter-attacks, rigorous defensive discipline and aggressive pressing. There have been more swaggering Italian champions dressed in blue and black striped jerseys in the last five years, but none have won a treble.
Even without Mourinho, Inter will look like a genuine force again along the highest peaks on the continental landscape. But they will know that retaining the trophy - a feat beyond any club of the last 20 years - will present as big a task as anything Mourinho did for them. "Italy can now say that it has the world champions of international football and the European champions of club football and that is something to be proud of," said Mourinho after Saturday's win.
The statement was devoid of personal affection for the Italian game, because Mourinho's exit strategy from Inter to Real has been partly constructed on his jarring relationship with many aspects of Italy. But it was still true. Italy will defend their World Cup title in South Africa next month and Italian clubs are still part of the so-called Big Three leagues, along with Spain's Primera Liga, and England's Premier League. In spite of German optimism that a win by Bayern Munich in Madrid would have proved their league had properly overtaken Serie A, Italian football - which has provided three of the last 10 Champions League winners - still has a more regal status than the Bundesliga.
But Serie A is also vulnerable, because Inter will take time to adapt to a new manager and may find at least one of their important contributors - perhaps Maicon, the dashing right full-back - follows the Kaka path to Real. Milan, who are in next season's Champions League, and Juventus, who are not, will also be under new management and both are in urgent need of a squad overhaul given the average age of their first-teams. The ermine collars and silk sleeves of the English Premier League are meanwhile looking a little tattier than they were two years ago. An English club was not in the cast of the Champions League final for the first time in six years at the weekend.
The summer transfer market has already ambushed Italy and England. Barcelona are keen to entice Cesc Fabregas, a leading light of the English domestic game, away from Arsenal in the way Real took Ronaldo from Manchester United. The big financial muscle-flexing is being done by the two Spanish heavyweight clubs. Already, it is hard to see how Real and Barcelona will not dominate their league in the way they did over the course of 2009/10. Barca and Real finished their domestic seasons 28 and 25 points ahead of third-placed Valencia, who have just sold David Villa, their most penetrative player, to Barcelona.
So much for the jostling of Europeans. Many of the season's key players have been from outside Europe. Mourinho was asked in his post-match press conference if he had introduced Marco Materazzi, the veteran defender, as a very last substitute against Bayern so that there would be one Italian on the field at the moment that an Italian club celebrated becoming champions of Europe. "I didn't think about nationalities," he replied, "but just because Internazionale are an international group of players it doesn't mean Italy should not be proud of what Inter have done."
Other nations would certainly take more practical optimism from Inter's success in this, a World Cup year. Diego Milito, the Argentine, scored the two goals against Bayern, his fifth and sixth in 11 European matches, to add to his 22 in Serie A. Those figures of course are dwarfed by Leo Messi's 42 league and European goals for Barcelona but compare favourably with the 29 Real's Gonzalo Higuain scored in fewer league and Champions League outings.
The connection? Messi, Milito and Higuain are compatriots. With Carlos Tevez's 24 Premier League goals for Manchester City in the campaign just completed and Sergio Aguero's gleaming Europa League medal for Atletico Madrid, the forthcoming World Cup looks very bright if you come from Argentina. Or least it looks rosy if you forgive the errors made by Martin Demichelis, Bayern's Argentine defender, that led to Milito's first goal. Demichelis will start for Argentina in South Africa next month, Milito almost certainly will not. And Messi, club football's outstanding individual in 2009/10, will not want to be watching the World Cup final on television, as he did the last match of the Champions League.
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