Arriverderci Paolo

Surely the best looking number three in football's history played his last European Cup/Champions League game this week. At the age of 40 Paolo Maldini is retiring at the end of the season, after more than 1,000 games at the top of the footballing world he is bowing out.

The word great is used so often these days in sport and the hyperbole that surrounds it that sometimes we forget what it really means. I remember when Bobby Moore died fifteen years ago last month, Alam Hansen was on Football Focus and summed it up by saying, "There was good, there was great and then there was Bobby Moore." Paolo Maldini was a great in every sense of the word. In an era where tackling is a dying art, step forward Eboue and Ashley Cole as examples of defenders who cannot tackle, Paolo Maldini is a shining example to any young football fan or fellow professional of how the game should be played, of how to tackle, how to support the midfield of the art of overlapping of positional sense and of leadership qualities.

The 1990 Champions League final is one of many examples of Maldini's qualities. 'Billy' Costacurta was suspended for the final, something he managed to do three times in his Milan career, and Maldini was switched from left back to centre of defence. Along with a superb midfield holding role from Marcel Desailly, Maldini was the star of the show as Milan outclassed what was a very good Barcelona side and won 4-0. In the same way that it took a while to get used to Franco Baresi not being there or Roberto Baggio not playing somewhere in Serie A the absence of Paolo Maldini from the Milan team he has graced for twenty three years will take some getting used to.

Honours:

Serie A: 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2004
Coppa Italia: 2003
Italian Super Cup: 1988, 1992, 1993, 1994, 2004
UEFA Champions League: 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, 2007
UEFA Super Cup: 1989, 1990, 1994, 2003, 2007
Intercontintenal Cup 1989, 1990
World Cup 2007

Good to see in the week that the feeling of neglect by the white working classes in England has made the headlines and the message boards that the three sides to made it through to the last eight of the Champions League managed to field nine English players between them - and five of those were for Manchester United. Arsenal that previous bastion of all things working class, English and white managed to field one. It's not Arsenal's fault though it's the BBC's, Gordon Browns and all the other metrosexuals.

Somebody said to me a few years ago that he didn't regard Arsenal as being English anymore and I can see his point. They may be an English club but they aren't an English team, the notion that they are somehow still English is as quaint as the notion that there is somehow a white working class out there waiting to be saved. I'm not just picking on Arsenal but let's be fair about this it's easier to pick on somebody for being successful than to pick on a Championship side who might have half a dozen dodgy Scandinavians in their side.

Arsene Wenger doesn't care, let's face it he doesn't trust English players although his comments that players leaving Arsenal are stepping down in quality does make me smile, when was the last time you won anything Arsene? Manchester United and Chelsea on the other hand do sign English players and they do win things, Arsenal play pretty pretty football and win plaudits - thing is I can't find the page headed plaudits in the Football Yearbook, but under Premiership. FA Cup and Carling Cup there seem to be a lot of entries that begin Manchester United and Chelsea.

In typical Mr Magoo fashion last week he delivered his post Martin Taylor rant about Arsenal being the most sinned against team in football and then when confronted with the real statistics about fouls and red cards and minutes between fouls and yellow cards etc denied the facts in front of him. He may wear the magic hat when it comes to coaching his teams to play the right way and entertaining but he loses all credibility when it tries to convince us all that black is the new brown.

Just to show I'm not all bad well down to Cesc Fabregas and Adebayor on Tuesday night, I thought they were both brilliant but what a shame it was however to see Mr Eboue up to his old tricks again throwing himself to the ground during the first half in the San Siro.