‘‘Mourinho trains to win. I train to play beautiful football and win. My way is more difficult.’’-Louis Van Gaal.

The UEFA Champions league is indisputably the greatest club competition in the world. The quality of football displayed has endeared many African football fans to it.

The year hasn’t been particularly good for African football fans, most of who support English Premier League teams. For the first time in five years, no Premier League team will be playing in the final of the UEFA Champions League. All four English teams who qualified were eliminated at various stages of the competition. Indeed, none of them made it beyond the quarter-finals this year.

First to go were Liverpool who failed to qualify from the group stage of the competition. Arsenal, also, were demolished 6-3 on aggregate by a Lionel Messi inspired Barcelona side. The duo of Manchester United and Chelsea were also defeated in the quarter-finals of the competition by Inter-Milan and Bayern-Munich respectively. So come Saturday the 22nd of May, football fans across the world will be watching a Champions League final without an English team for the first time in five years.

The Bernabeu Encounter. Barcelona fans who envisaged lifting the Champions League trophy for the second consecutive year at the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, will have to make do with watching Inter-Milan and Bayern-Munich slug it out in the final instead. For the past couple of days soccer fans have been enthusiastically involved in the ‘who wins the Champions League’ debate. While some fans are of the opinion that Inter will win to complete a clean sweep of titles this year, others think Bayern, having already won the German Bundesliga and the German Cup, will cap up a fantastic season by winning the Champions League.

Most African football fans are backing Inter-Milan to win on Saturday due to the following factors: First, three African players-Eto, Muntari, and Mariga- are in the Inter team, and African fans in Cameroon, Ghana, and Kenya will be relentlessly backing them to win. Second, Inter coach, Mourinho, is hugely popular in Africa, having led Chelsea to back-to-back premier league titles.

Third, Inter defeated a hitherto indomitable Barcelona side on their way to the final, and in the process, gained the support of fans of teams like Arsenal and Manchester United, who have lost to Barcelona in recent times. While Manchester United fans have still not forgotten their 2-0 defeat to Barcelona in the final of last year’s championship, Arsenal fans will also not forget the pain and humiliation they suffered at the Nou Camp a couple of weeks ago, where Messi mercilessly led Barcelona to incapacitate Arsenal.

Who Wins the Final? It will be difficult to predict which team will win at the Santiago Bernabeu on Saturday. Both teams are currently the best teams in their respective leagues. Inter-Milan have won the Scudetto for the last five seasons, and Bayern-Munich remain the most successful team in Germany, having won more silverware than any other German team.

Many football fans have labelled Inter-Milan the overwhelming favourites to win on Saturday. Most of those fans are probably overlooking the fact that Bayern-Munich have a greater pedigree in the Champions League than many other European teams, including Inter. While Bayern have won the prestigious competition on four occasions, with their last trophy coming in 2001, Inter have managed to win the competition only twice, winning their last trophy in 1965.

With regard to player quality, both teams possess some the best footballers in the world. Inter can boast of world class players like Eto, Lucio, Maicon, Sneidjer, and Julio Caesar. The same can be said of Bayern, who also possess quality players like Arjen Robben, Philip Lahm, Ivica Olic, and Frank Ribery. Unfortunately for Bayern, Ribery has been suspended for the final, and that could turn out to be their undoing.

Not only will Saturday’s final be a battle between two of the best teams in the world, we will also see two of the best coaches in world football coming head to head. Inter-Milan’s Jose Mourinho has won both the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, including league titles in Portugal and England, while Bayern-Munich’s Louis Van Gaal has also won the Champions League and the UEFA Cup, along with three Eredivise titles with Ajax, and back-to-back Spanish Primera division trophies with Barcelona.

The difference between both tacticians, however, is their coaching philosophy. While Louis Van Gaal believes in a free-flowing attacking style of play, Mourinho is primarily concerned with solidity in defence, midfield efficiency, and endless bursts on the counter attack. According to Louis Van Gaal, Mourinho ‘trains to win. But he (Van Gaal) ‘trains to play beautiful football and win.’ Needless to say, both men are tactically astute and vastly experienced; it will be extremely interesting to find out which of them will come out tops at the end of their Bernabeu encounter. Against Inter-Milan, Bayern will rely mainly on speed, zeal, skill, and an impeccable mastery of the ball.

Inter, on the other hand, will be at their physically intimidating best, combining brute power, thoroughbred athleticism and an irrepressible fighting spirit. If Inter rediscover the form that saw them beat Barcelona 3-1 in the first leg of their semi-final clash, Bayern will be in for trouble. Though, in dramatically edging out Manchester United in the quarter-final, Bayern proved that they are capable, on any day, of beating the best in the world.

Bayern have a great offence with players like Robben, Ribery, and Olic pulling the strings upfront; however, the same cannot be said about their defence which is not as good, making them a bit vulnerable. On the other hand, the strength of this Inter team is their defence, which is sometimes impregnable, as proven in the game against Barcelona. Their attacking pair of Diego Milito and Eto can also cause problems for the best of defences on any day.

While Bayern will be looking up to Arjen Robben to fill the void created by Ribery’s absence, his fellow Dutchman Wesley Sneijder is the man Inter will be expecting to pull the strings in mid-field. A Bayern side without Ribery will be considerably weaker, and Inter-Milan is likely to exploit his absence to win their first Champions league trophy in 45 years.

If any of Inter and Bayern win it, they will make history as the first team in their country to win the treble. Soccer fans should brace up for an exciting and tension-filled encounter at the Bernabeu. Whoever wins on Saturday, will have done so the hard way. Samuel K. Obour samuelkwason.blogspot.com