Inter Milan Have Taken Football Back to the Dark Ages

As in every other aspect of life, football is fundamentally subject to inequality. Not every club can have the same resources, money, following or talent as others. Out of this come elite clubs that seemingly swap trophies or champions league places year after year. This is a simple fact of life that never truly bothered me before. I was happy to see the champions league final of 2008 being contested by the worlds most talented players and managers. I was even happy, despite being a Celtic fan, to see Rangers reach the Uefa Cup final the year before. 


Rangers were the underdogs. They couldn't afford to bring in players of the quality of the opposition they met at every stage of the competition. The tactics they employed were designed to disrupt the play of technically superior attacking players, and it worked. Well, until the final.


Back to the 2008/09 champions league and Inter Milan were beaten 2-0 by Manchester United in the second round. Mourinho took note, and in the next year he refreshed his tactics, seemingly inspired by Walter Smith, (although much more likely by his previous Champions League victory with Porto, another underdog side). So with a squad of international talent, with former champions league winners, millionaire players and a team with an indisputable claim to being an elite club, Mourinho adopted what many critics claim as anti-football tactics. And herein lies the problem, my complaint, to what Mourinho has done to my favourite game. He has made it acceptable to both fans and chairmen to pay players in excess of £80,000 to repress expression of their talent and of the opposition. 


It is wholly acceptable, and desirable, to see the likes of Walter Smith's Rangers throw men behind the ball in a bid to win games against the odds. It is not, in my view, for clubs on a par  with the opposition to do the same. How would the sport look if all the other top clubs adopted Mourinho's tactics? It's always easier to defend than to attack in sport. In a World Cup stunted with goaless draws, can we now look forward to a Champions League of similar caution?