Tomorrow is a unique day for all Milan fans, where the celebration will be at the San Siro which will display the 18 trophies that place Milan as the number one ranked club in the world.

Gazzetta dello Sport took this important date and had an exclusive interview with President Silvio Berlusconi, who talked first about Pato, saying: "With him I remember Gullit and Van Basten, I know that there is still a long way to go and that tomorrow is his first match and he must remain calm when taking the pitch. But he will be available for this team for the next ten years, as we don't have any reason to sell our players, and as everyone now knows Shevchenko was a special case".


Q. Will you not sell Ronaldo ?

"Why? I have a lot of confidence in that he will come back to being 100% fit, and for that I think Ronaldo will remain with us for a long time to come. Because with him, we have a very strong attack as we have three big attackers, and as Galliani says 'if we play in front of Napoli with all three of Kaka', Gilardino and Pato we will have the youngest attack force in Serie A'".


Q. Are you still interested in bringing Ronaldinho to Milan ?

"When we think of Ronaldinho or other strikers, we ask ourselves the question of who is best suited for the team, and not who he may be. And the answer now is rather difficult, as we are content with Pato".


Q. This means that you will concentrate on Zambrotta ?

"Zambrotta will be a helping hand for us in the future, as he is able to integrate in several positions. At the same time, we want to concentrate on our young players, where we depend on Gourcuff, Kaka' and Pato. And without forgetting the youth players who have shown a lot of promise: Marzoratti, Matri, Borriello, and Pozzi".


Q. The speculation surrounding Dida ?

Let's not forget that we won the Champions League in 2003 because of him, and even in Athena he produced a performance that is of the grade of a Milan player. Still, unfortunately he is suffering from an injury in his shoulders, and if it was another player instead of Dida, he would have stopped playing. Still, in spite of this Dida continues to play, through the pain. And Dida has our complete faith and trust.


Q. What is more difficult from your point of view, the fourth place finish or the Champions League triumph ?

"In football everything is difficult, because it depends on 50% skill and 50% luck, like Galliani had said, we have reached 2nd place 16 times. We are Milan, and we want to continue winning and we will fight to reach fourth place and Moscow".


Gazzetta Dello Sport

This is true and I think this should be taken into account before we bash him, it could even be a reason as to why he's made a few mistakes. Leeds will always be an indelible black mark but I think he deserves our support.

Could also be Don Silvio's way of covering up for Dida's mistakes

1 or 2 mistakes a season? Fine. But this is happening way too often. Top clubs need solid keepers who just do their job. Not ones that can pull of the odd fantastic saves but let in stupid goals. Otherwise Ricardo would be playing for a top club.

Good news about R10 and Zambrotta as well. One doesn't look like he'll be coming, the other does.

Kurt and I agree. Given recent...discussions...this is perhaps somewhat surprising.

I also found it interesting that Don Silvio made a point of mentioning the former Primavera players playing in Serie A. Perhaps after Maldini's earlier comments, more attention will be paid to the Primavera. (Today's Primavera game was postponed, by the way, due to a waterlogged pitch).

Exactly

it really annoys me when people speak of the 03 final and say dida won it. dida did score all our goals on route to the final or something, like the one in injury time vs. ajax? did he have any amazing outstanding games in goal? not really. i mean i give him credit for the penalties he saved but come on the juve players choked poorly taken penalties like the one that struck his leg ( i belive 2 were saved that way) i mean i dont deny dida was once world class, one of the best keepers in the world.


again dida performances are over hyped. he did well in the final but in all honesty no good keeper in the world should allow any of those shots. if he allowed that gerrard shot we'd be talking about dida as the goat, and another final were allowed weak goals that eventually made use lose.


then why the **** is he playing? an injured dida starting games/ now thats a scary tought why cant we go out and get replacement, since he's injured?


i'll give credit to dida in did in that dept. but sadly the world of sports isnt always fare, we arent going to throw a whole season away because the management have a soft spot for dida.

And let's not forget we lost the Istanbul final because of his slumber on Gerrard's header that led to a bloody 6 minutes... [Buffon would probably save that header!]

I would trade that rather boring Manchester final, and maybe even Athens final, with an Istanbul win anytime. because in that game we produced one of the best games in the history of football, while in Athens and Manchester we did not. that's my opinion at least...

Don't forget letting Smicer's shot go through him when it was easy to save

Could he? I've always thought that was a great shot...

Probably because we had an amazing defense that season, especially when you compare it to the one we've got now. He might not have "stood out" in your opinion but I think he made a vital contribution to us winning that year. Obviously though he didn't win it single handed that would be impossible, football is a team game you win & lose together.

Well you know what we're like when it comes to spending money. I agree though.

You can't seriously think if we don't get at least 4th place it'll be down to 1 or 2 errors from an injured Dida?

He tried to push it past the post, and made a complete mess of it.

Did we fvck! That was a great header, noone would've saved that. There's no definitive explanation of why we lost that night, I think it was fate & we were supposed to beat them in Athens - it's too much of a coincedence for me. But this is just my theory. We played great apart from those 6 mins, even in extra time. You can't blame Dida.

You'd really only want us to have 6 CL's instead of 7? And have lost to the zebras even though we deserved to beat them. If that's your opinion fine but mine is that that's just stupid. Even if we didn't play amazing football there are only 2 teams in a final & I'm glad we won them & think we deserved them both if not all 3.

There was a 'fool player blocking his view & it should have been disallowed. Plus the linesman put his flag up for offside but the ref ignored it - WTF? you can't do that! otherwise there's no point in having a linesman.

Probably because of this:

Baros moved out of the way, Dida saw it - hence the fact he actually got to the ball - but made a very weak attempt to save it. I'm not sure why you're saying it shouldn't have been allowed, it's not like Baros was offside.

He only saw it at the last minute, that's why he only just got to it but not enough to keep it out. The ball brushed Baros's stomach & he was in the way, I don't know if he was offside or not but it was close. Because the linesman put his flag up for offside before that whole action & the ref ignored it, which he shouldn't have done.

i bet Marco Borriello comes back from genoa next season as a just incase striker if someone gets a injury, although his records on wikkipedia dont look that good this years 10 goals in 15 apps is very impressive lets hope it continues get 20

not at all, we have many problems, one of them being dida. and it's been much more than 1 or 2 errors, he's blown 4-5 games for us. a good 12-15 pts in the standings... that massive when you think of it.

no i dont think the main reason we're doing bad is cuz of him but he surely isnt helping. especially when you consider his role, a goal keeper he should bring stability to the def not make everyone cringe when a cross is sent in or on a harmless 30 shot in the center of the goal. this isnt new too, it's what nearly 2 years he's been doing this?

I'm pretty sure u'll find Baros was OFFSIDE. If that counts. Sheva's should have counted in Manchester. Baros may have stepped out of the way but he had his view impeded until the last second when he moved. Dida should have saved it but still should have been disallowed.

Agreed, the linesmans flag was raised yet the ref blatantly refused to acknowledge it!

Definately could have and should have saved it. Both the first goals were his fault, neighter of them should have gone in

Fair enough I agree with everything you said here

Yea about the same amount of time since he got hit by that damn merda flare As Silvio said it's his right shoulder that's being giving him trouble which is why I think we should go a little bit easier on him. As you said/touched on before I think it's the club's responsibility to find an adequate replacement & not play with an injured player. I do think though at the end of the day he's given 100% but has had the odd lapse in concentration (which I'm no GK but if I had to stand around for the best part of 90mins I think I'd lose concentration too! )

Thank you I forgot to mention that, there was a question of offside but (can't remember who it was) wasn't interfering with play.

Silvio mentioned him as well as Marzoratti, Matri & Pozzi so any of them (I doubt all) could come back next season. Not to mention Antonini, Abate & maybe a couple of others.

Didn't he play for Man. Utd.?

Yep good news, just wish he came earlier hope it's this month & not in June although I've got a bad feeling it might be the latter.

ya i'm sure dida is a good lad

Yeah I'm a good lad too but I don't play for Milan!

Porty can get u a trial @ inter ? What say u ?


Go on, and when u get a first team chance u can tell them all about: how you were an inter fan all through ur childhood

Here's a picture as Smicer hit the ball for the 2nd goal.

The players with a blue dot next to them, are in my opinion, level with Baros - As strikers should be given the advantage in this case, that's two playing him onside.

Even if you disagree strikers should be given the advantage, the player with a red dot is playing him well onside anyways.



The game was full of these bad calls anyway. To score our 2nd goal, we won the ball back unfairly (Nesta handballed it in the box while he was on the floor) then we scored scored from an offside position, so it should have been 1-1, and not 2-0, in any case. When your team is on the losing side, you tend to forget things that go your way, if Liverpool had of lost, these would have been the talking points instead.

Baros was not offside, Nesta's intervention was not a penalty and no one was in an offside position for our second goal.

Let's stop with this talk please. It's all in the past. Liverpool won that one on penalties and nothing's gonna change that now.

I'd rather remember this game for the wonderful football that we played than any bad calls or whatever else is that happened. I'm pretty sure the Scousers have a lot to recall from that game too, like the monkey that was jumping around (really, is this what Dudek will be showing his kids?) in front of their goal in the penalty shootout...

I just hope in the future they invent a way to wipe out certain things from your memory. Istanbul will definitely be in my list of things I want to delete.

A year ago I would wish for that too. But now, this memory makes the 2007 Athens victory all the more sweeter!

That's true

If this was the action of the 2nd goal then you could be right about no offside but I was talking about before that when the linesman put his flag up & the ref ignored it.

That was ball to hand not intentional handball. I get your point though about things going/not going your way when you win/lose.

Agreed.

I'd like to do that too. But along the lines as what mishale was saying, certain things are hard to forget (even if we got revenge in Athens.) Yea that was stupid & he should have been booked for unsportsmanlike conduct IMO. Plus he was off his line for 1 or 2 of the penalties so they should've been taken again.