It’s here ladies and gentlemen. Europe’s showpiece football event. The Champions League final. The match all England, Italy and most of Malta has been waiting for.

In the run up to the event people keep asking me who I think will come out on top in tonight’s encounter – people who obviously have little knowledge of my prediction history.

And I keep telling them the same thing – I haven’t got a clue.

On the one hand, Milan play the prettier, more complete football as they showed against Manchester United in the previous round. If you are looking for a team that should win the CL then look no further than the Italians.

On the other hand, Liverpool, while nowhere near as complete as their opponents tonight, are very, very, very effective at what they do, which is win the matches that really count.

When these two met two years ago all the qualities I mentioned above were very much in evidence. Milan took a three-goal lead by playing football of the highest order before Liverpool pulled it back through sheer determination and grit. That it was finally decided by the lottery of penalties was almost inevitable from that point onwards.

Over the intervening 24 months little has changed. Fair enough, there will be a few different players on each side but the overall approaches and styles of play will be the same.

And that makes tonight’s clash just as difficult to call as the last one turned out to be.

Whereas Milan have the creative brilliance of Kaka, Liverpool have the uniqueness of Crouch. Where Milan have the gritty power of Gattuso, Liverpool have the non-stop determination of Gerrard.

And where Milan have the elegant fluidity of Maldini, Liverpool have the Scouse determination of Carragher.

Two very different but remarkably even sides.

If push came to shove and I was forced to put money on the outcome I would probably expect the Italians to shade it. They have the motivation of revenge on their side.

And you don’t get much more of an incentive than that…

Calculations

Been doing some calculations over the weekend and I have realised that I watched a quite disturbing amount of football over this season.

Assuming I manage to watch tonight’s game I will have, by my estimation, managed to watch more than 20,000 minutes of football in the past eight months or so. Allow me to explain.

I watched 36 of Sheffield United’s games on television and one live. That’s a pretty healthy start right there. Then there was all those matches that took place on Sundays, always at least one, sometimes two, occasionally three. Although I wouldn’t watch all of these I have to admit that I must have caught a good 50 of them over the season.

Next there were the early and late games on Saturdays. Again, I wouldn’t have watched them all but there must be an additional 25 over the course of eight months. At least.

Added to that are the Champions League and UEFA Cup games – another 20 or so there and the FA Cup, League Cup and midweek Premiership matches – another 20?

Finally there are the internationals that have got to add up to another 10 games or so.

What does that make? 162? Absolutely terrifying especially as I think I am erring on the side of caution and the number is probably closer to 200.

But let’s take 150 games as a conservative amount. Working on a 90 minute match, that’s 225 hours of football at the very least. All will have had three or four minute of additional time, while some will have gone into full blown extra time and a few all the way to penalties.

So the 225 hours quite easily become 240. That’s 10 solid days of watching football. A week-and-a-half of non-stop, end-to-end, football pleasure – without a half time in sight.

Some may describe this as excessive. And, I admit, it probably is a little. Next season, however, will be quite different without Sheffield United on TV every week and with my first child on the way.

There will, of course, still be plenty of football watched. But, somehow, you just get the feeling we will never again reach the heady heights of the 2006/07 season in terms of viewing figures… oh well.

Poor football

The venue was magnificent, the crowd tremendous, the day historic. Sadly, the football entirely failed to live up to occasion.

The history books will show that Chelsea won the 2007 FA Cup with an extra-time goal from Didier Drogba. What those same books won’t show is that the match was about as exciting as watching ice-cream melt.

For some reason – maybe nerves at baptising the new stadium, maybe over-caution by the managers – two teams that should have brought attacking zeal to the occasion entirely failed to do anything of the sort.

I admit, and anybody that knows me will know how unusual this is, that I was actually dozing off during the first half – an unheard of occurrence when there is football to be watched.

Still Wembley looked magnificent. At least we now have a venue that is capable of hosting memorable football when the teams decide they are capable of playing it.

Contact James on:

[email protected]