Scorelines can sometimes be very deceptive. Holders AC Milan beat Benfica 2-1 on Tuesday in their opening Champions League Group D clash but in truth they should have netted five at least.

Andrea Pirlo, majestic all game, curled in a trademark free kick early on and then Filippo Inzaghi grabbed his 43rd Champions League goal and 60th in European club football. The 34-year-old is now just two behind Gerd Mueller’s record of 62, which he would have shattered against the Portuguese but for some good keeping from Quim and two wayward finishes.

Benfica were not shocking, even if their pink away shirts were, but even former Milan midfielder Rui Costa had no way of stopping Carlo Ancelotti’s side, who have drawn their last two Serie A games 1-1 but save their best form for Europe.

Milan’s side was the same which beat Liverpool in last May’s final except for injured captain Paolo Maldini. Brazilian Kaka also showed with two amazing bursts down the touchline that his decision to rest and skip July’s Copa America has helped him add some extra pace to go with his tricks.

On this evidence it would take a brave man to bet against Milan defending their Champions League title, especially after Chelsea limped to a 1-1 home draw with Rosenborg and Liverpool were held at Porto.

“It is lamentable how poor Liverpool were last night,” was the view of Red Cauldron. Of the Londoners, Chelseablog said: “A dominating performance with no end product – story of our season so far.”

Elsewhere, Real Madrid beat Werder Bremen 2-1 but when it comes to the business end of the season their failure to tempt Kaka to the Bernabeu this summer may prove more costly than the 80 million euros they offered.
 
Mark Meadows, Milan

Inter Milan are one of the richest and biggest clubs in Europe but they start their Champions League campaign without a defence.

They visit Fenerbahce in Group G on Wednesday without injured centre backs Marco Materazzi and Cristian Chivu while Walter Samuel is also struggling with a knock. Meanwhile, Nicolas Burdisso, Maicon and Ivan Cordoba all have long term Champions League suspensions following the mass brawl in the game with Valencia last season.

That leaves the Italian champions with just Brazilian left back Maxwell, a converted midfielder, and largely untried Colombian central defender Nelson Rivas.

Captain Javier Zanetti may have to return to right back from midfield and left winger Cesar, who scored a cracking goal in the 2-0 league win over Catania on Sunday, could play at left back but it is doubtful Maxwell could shift across.

Midfielder Patrick Vieira could have dropped back to central defence as a stop gap measure but he is doubtful for the trip to Istanbul after playing twice for France despite a hamstring injury, which greatly annoyed Inter coach Roberto Mancini.

Inter fans may wonder why they let flexible full back Fabio Grosso join Lyon in August. The ripping up of defender Francesco Coco’s contract to allow him to become an actor may also have backfired (see “Coco from Inter to Hollywood” at Soccerphile if you missed the story)..

The decision to leave troubled striker Adriano out of their Champions League squad is another talking point. If Mancini was looking for a makeshift defender the big, powerful Brazilian would fit the mould, especially as his current lack of form in the box means he would be unlikely to score any own goals.

Mark Meadows, Milan

Rugby and soccer have always had an uneasy relationship, but it has suddenly become a lot worse in France.

The soccer team were forced to play Scotland in the Parc des Princes on Wednesday because the Stade de France, their usual fortress, was unavailable due to the Rugby World Cup.

France, who won the 1998 World Cup at the Stade, have bad memories of the smaller Paris stadium after missing out on World Cup 94 following a famous defeat to Bulgaria at the Parc (see here for a nice memory jogger).
 
Wednesday’s result may turn out to be just as costly. France went down 1-0 to Scotland in a Euro 2008 qualifier, just as they did in Glasgow in October, to drop from top of Group B to third.

Italy, who drew 0-0 with France at the San Siro on Saturday, are now second in the group after a 2-1 win in Ukraine. Roberto Donadoni, under pressure at home, showed guts by dropping Alessandro Del Piero, Filippo Inzaghi and Daniele De Rossi after poor performances against the French and was rewarded by two goals from largely unheralded Udinese striker Antonio Di Natale.
 
Most other qualifiers ran to form, with Michael Owen scoring two in England’s 3-0 win over Russia to take his international goal tally to 40. England, who beat Israel by the same score on Saturday, have moved up to second in the group following their sudden resurgence under Steve McClaren.

The coach was without Wayne Rooney, Frank Lampard, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Owen Hargreaves and Aaron Lennon and they will all now face a fight to return to the starting lineup.

McClaren risked ridicule by recalling striker Emile Heskey and it paid off. His partnership with Owen, along with Gareth Barry’s emergence in midfield, suggests that picking a team that works together rather than the 11 best players can make all the difference.

And after France rugby coach Bernard Laporte made 13 changes for Sunday’s World Cup match with Namibia, maybe rugby and soccer can learn form each other after all.  
 
Mark Meadows, Milan

AC Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti said last month that a slimmed down Ronaldo looked like “a model”.
 
Unfortunately for the Brazilian, he is unable to walk down a Milan catwalk or turn out at the San Siro because of a niggling hamstring injury.
 
Milan said he would be fit for the start of the season and then reckoned it would be later in September. In the event the club’s medical staff have said they misjudged the injury and he will now be out for another month.
 
The annoyed striker, who has lost 5.5 kilos in an effort to regain his former glory, has flown to doctors in Antwerp and Brazil in a bid to sort out the injury.
 
Milan will hope he has not been scoffing the first class airline food in his frustration.  
 
Mark Meadows, Milan

The three biggest contests this weekend look like being England v Israel, Italy v France and Club v Country.

England’s Steven Gerrard has a broken toe and despite Liverpool’s protests, the midfielder may take an injection to play in a Euro 2008 qualifier England need to win.
 
France captain Patrick Vieira has missed the start of the Serie A season with a hamstring strain and his club Inter Milan believe he will not be fit for the World Cup final repeat at the San Siro on Saturday. France coach Raymond Domenech, though, thinks the midfielder can last at least an hour and looks ready to take a risk on the former Arsenal man.
 
Such club v country rows crop up nearly every international week and tend to erode good will between the two parties. The arguments also contributed to the international retirements of the likes of Alessandro Nesta, Paul Scholes and Francesco Totti.
 
FIFA and UEFA have started to work out compensation for clubs whose players are injured on international duty but they may have to do more to address the original club v country battles.
 
Maybe it’s time governing bodies or an independent panel rule on whether a player should turn out for their country. They could hear from both parties and then make a quick decision before a game.

The problem is that clubs could then start asking the panel for compensation if a player was cleared to play and his injury got worse. So who’s going to sanction that?

Mark Meadows, Milan

There were huge grins in Italy after defending champions AC Milan and rivals Inter received favourable Champions League draws.

Milan will play Celtic, Benfica and Shakhtar Donetsk in Group D while Inter are in Group G with PSV Eindhoven CSKA Moscow and Fenerbahce.
 
“Big smiles” ran the headline in Gazzetta dello Sport, along with two big yellow smileys. “Milan and Inter have it easy.”
 
But such overconfidence has led big teams to flop in the group stage before as Manchester United found to their cost two seasons ago when they finished fourth behind Villarreal, Benfica and Lille.
 
In any case, isn’t it better to come up against as many top teams as possible? The Champions League is supposed to be about testing yourself against the best, after all.

Tough matches early on could be the perfect catalyst for a successful campaign and AS Roma are hoping that the urge for revenge after their 7-1 drubbing by United last season can help them defeat Alex Ferguson’s men this time around.

Mark Meadows, Milan

Kevin Fylan adds: If drawing Europe’s finest is really what it’s all about, German clubs should be pretty happy. Schalke are in Group B with Valencia, Chelsea and Rosenborg, Stuttgart will face Barcelona, Olympique Lyon and Rangers in Group E, while Werder Bremen are with Real Madrid, Lazio and Olympiacos in Group C.

Werder came close to knocking out Barcelona in the group stage last season and they will relish a crack at Real Madrid, coached now by the German Bernd Schuster and with Christoph Metzelder at centre-back.

English clubs have got very good at negotiating their way through the group phase and I suspect none of them will be exactly daunted by their groups. Chelsea have what looks to be the toughest ask, while Arsenal will be confident of getting through, even assuming they have Sevilla as opponents.

As A Cultured Left Foot had it: “The Champions League draw was ultimately favourable to Arsenal… To win all six games may be too lofty an expectation; to remain unbeaten is within capabilities.”

But how was it for you and your team? Let us know if you’re feeling elated or depressed.

Italian soccer used to be seen as dull but these days it is anything but. This weekend’s opening set of matches had great goals, intriguing results and wacky touchline antics.

David Trezeguet grabbed a hat-trick as Juventus returned to the top flight after their match-fixing demotion with a 5-1 home win over Livorno. But as Martha notes on The Offside, Claudio Ranieri’s team were not as good as the scoreline suggests with three goals coming in the last five minutes. New signings have yet to gel fully and apart from Gianluigi Buffon, the defence looks shaky.

Roberto Mancini blamed the summer heat for Ivan Cordoba scoring a stoppage time own goal and keeper Julio Cesar being sent off in Inter’s 1-1 home draw with Udinese while Kaka inspired AC Milan to a 3-0 win at promoted Genoa, where Milan fans were banned because of fears of crowd violence.

After the match, Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani showed he will be as colourful as ever this season when he suggested that referees should spray paint a line 10 yards from a freekick to stop encroachment.
 
But the real excitement came at Parma where new Catania coach Silvio Baldini kicked his opposite number Domenico Di Carlo up the backside as he was sent to the stands for arguing with the officials.

If the next 37 rounds of matches are anything like this, we are in for a vintage season.

Mark Meadows, Milan

Fabio Cannavaro has gone from World Cup winner and world player of the year to an error-prone liability in just over 12 months.

That, at least, is the general view in Italy after the 33-year-old’s dwindling pace and rashness resulted in two goals during the country’s 3-1 friendly defeat by Hungary. He looked a completely different player from the rock who repelled almost everything in Germany last year.
 
But Real Madrid fans know that last season he was already a shadow of his former self, either because age was catching up with him or he had lost his full motivation having lifted the greatest prize in the game.
 
“Cannavaro last night was embarrassing and it was the same in Real’s game against Sevilla (in the Spanish Super Cup),” ema maimoon remarks on Italy’s Calcioblog.

Plenty of other players have lost their ability abruptly, of course. Former Manchester United midfielder Neil Webb went from England international to a postman earning 220 pounds a week in just five years (see a brief biog at the bubble burst) while Lee Sharpe’s career took such a downward spiral after he left Old Trafford that he ended up on the Celebrity Love Island gameshow.

Cannavaro said before the Hungary game that he would never retire form international football like Francesco Totti and Alessandro Nesta. If he carries on the way he is going, he might not have a choice.

Mark Meadows, Milan

Some mysteries are much more fun when they’re left unsolved.  When Deep Throat turned out to be a former FBI man it was all a bit of an anticlimax, and since Fake Steve Jobs was unmasked as a an editor at Forbes some of the fun has gone out of reading the site.

Now, a little over a year after the World Cup final, Marco Materazzi has revealed the exact words he said to Zinedine Zidane before the Frenchman butted him in the chest. Sadly, the phrase, “I prefer the whore that is your sister” could hardly be more banal.

It was much more fun in the days immediately following the final when people were speculating so wildly about just what the Italian defender could have said to make Zidane lose his cool. Materazzi even put his name to a book full of suggestions. 

However, the story does not end here. Materazzi is annoyed that the Italian magazine has included the quote as part of an interview with him. He says he wanted to reveal the secret in his soon-to-be published autobiography and fears that no one will now buy his book, which surely would never have been commissioned if the incident in Berlin had not happened.
 
But perhaps his autobiography will give us the answer to an equally perplexing question: How he went from being an error-prone flop at Everton to a World Cup winner who commands Inter Milan’s defence? Now that’d be worth knowing…

Mark Meadows, Milan

The authorities have worked hard to improve stadium security following the death of a policeman during riots at a Catania match in February but fighting outside Lazio’s Champions League qualifier with Dinamo Bucharest shows that the problem with soccer violence is far from being solved in Italy.

Entering the San Siro on Tuesday for a friendly tournament involving Milan, Inter and Juve was a lot like getting through airport security. Three rows of stewards and police checked identification documents, tickets and bags before I even got near to the ultra-modern electronic turnstile.

The only worrying issue was the ticketing policy, with frustrated fans queuing for ages to get a seat and almost causing a crush. The rush to distribute tickets to ease the congestion also led to rival fans being put in the same section but happily all was calm inside the arena.

Apart from some racist chanting in the grounds, the real problem is outside the stadiums in places that the football authorities cannot act — a fact largely ignored by the media and politicians.

The policeman in Catania was killed in his car, well away from the ground. The five Romanians injured ahead of the Lazio game were attacked outside the security ring at the Stadio Olimpico.

The perpetrators of these acts are often not soccer fans at all and just tag along to cause violence. Soccer needs help rather than constant condemnation.

Mark Meadows, Milan