It’s goodbyes all around
It is a weekend of farewells, the last weekend of the European soccer season, and the magnitude of the names leaving the stage is quite staggering.
On Saturday, Coach Guus Hiddink bid goodbye to Chelsea, having revived the club to such an extent since taking over from Luiz Felipe Scolari on a short-term deal in February that he even left the Blues with some silverware.
Exceptional goals by Didier Drogba and Frank Lampard canceled out the fastest goal in the 137-year history of the F.A. Cup -- a strike by Everton’s Louis Saha after only 25 seconds -- as Chelsea won the trophy, 2-1, on a sun-baked afternoon in front of 89,391 in Wembley Stadium.
“It was almost a perfect goodbye,” Hiddink said. “We had some wonderful performances in the Premier League and also in the Champions League and this is the highlight, to win the F.A. Cup.”
The Dutchman now returns to his main job of qualifying Russia’s national team for next year’s World Cup in South Africa while Chelsea awaits the arrival of his successor, almost certain to be Carlo Ancelotti of AC Milan.
First, Ancelotti has to negotiate Milan through a difficult season finale today in Florence, where Fiorentina provides the opposition in the 902nd and last game in the astonishing club career of legendary defender Paolo Maldini.
Maldini, 41 next month, made his AC Milan debut as a 16-year-old in January of 1985. To put that in local perspective, it was only five months after the Los Angeles Olympics and Landon Donovan was just a 2-year-old kicking a ball around his Redlands home.
In the two-dozen years that followed, Maldini became the most accomplished and stylish of defenders, equally at home in the center of defense or on the left, a calm presence radiating confidence throughout the team.
Maldini played 126 games for Italy, leading the Azzurri to the 1994 World Cup final at the Rose Bowl and the agony of a loss to Brazil on penalty kicks.
With AC Milan, he won seven Serie A championships and five European Cups, amid a host of other honors that included a world club championship.
“I have given everything for the Rossoneri shirt,” he said last weekend when he played his final home game.
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More farewells
Two other iconic Serie A players also are moving on.
Luis Figo, 36, the longtime Portuguese international and the 2001 FIFA world player of the year, is retiring after winning barrow-loads of championships and cups in Portugal, Spain and Italy, most recently four consecutive with Inter Milan.
“May 31, 2009, will be my last Sunday as a footballer,” Figo said on the club’s website. “I am happy that my last Sunday as a footballer will be a party for me and for everyone at Inter after our fourth successive scudetto.
“Winning was always the only real objective of my career. Winning everything that I could win, from practice matches in training to championships, cup and personal trophies. And I have known only one road on the path to victory, that of sacrifice and hard work.”
Bidding a less self-serving adieu is Juventus playmaker Pavel Nedved, who announced Saturday that today will mark is final appearance for the Turin club.
The 36-year-old Czech Republic international has spent the last eight years with Juventus after being signed as the replacement for Zinedine Zidane.
“The time has come to say goodbye to all the fans, my teammates and the club and thank them for the support received over the years,” Nedved said on the Juventus website.
“I’ll think about my future on Monday.”
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Beckham visits
Because they were preparing for today’s game, AC Milan’s players did not travel to Rome on Wednesday night to see Barcelona defeat Manchester United in the European Champions League final.
Instead, David Beckham and a few others gathered at Maldini’s home to watch the game on TV.
“I’ve played against him but never ever thought in my career that I would play with him,” Beckham said in a Friday interview with The Times. “If someone was to turn around and say, ‘What’s the most enjoyable part of being in Milan and being at a club like AC Milan?’ for me it was playing with Paolo Maldini.
“Not just playing with him, but training with him and seeing how professional he is and seeing him at almost 41 years old still as passionate and dedicated to the game and to AC Milan as any player at the club.
“To be at one club for 24 years and to show the passion that he does at his age is really exceptional.”
Maldini retired from Italy’s national team after its second-round loss to Hiddink-coached South Korea in the 2002 World Cup. Had he not done so, he would unquestionably have been part of the Azzurri’s winning team at the Germany ’06 World Cup.
“This sums Paolo up as a man and the person and the player he is,” Beckham said. “He was asked to go to that World Cup, but since he wasn’t involved in the qualifiers, he declined.
“I didn’t know him at the time as well as I do now, but apparently he was as happy as the players who actually won it for the team and for the country.”
By tonight, one of soccer’s all-time greats will have hung up his boots for good.
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Brazilian influence
Bordeaux’s victory over Caen on Saturday clinched the French title for Coach Laurent Blanc’s team, ending Lyon’s seven-year reign as Ligue 1 champion. The victory means that all the major European leagues have been decided, and the five champions have something else in common -- one or more influential Brazilian players. Take a look:
*--* League Champion Coach English Premier League Manchester United Alex Ferguson Key Brazilian: midfielder Anderson. *--*
*--* French Ligue 1 Bordeaux Laurent Blanc Key Brazilian: midfielder Fernando. *--*
*--* German Bundesliga VfL Wolfsburg Felix Magath Key Brazilians: forward Grafite and midfielder Josue. *--*
*--* Italian Serie A Inter Milan Jose Mourinho Key Brazilians: Goalie Julio Cesar, defenders Maicon and Maxwell. *--*
*--* Spanish Primera Liga Barcelona Josep Guardiola Key Brazilians: defenders Dani Alves and Sylvinho. *--*
Source: Grahame L. Jones, Times staff writer
