The neutrals have no doubt. “Flop. Fear wins at the Nou Camp” was Gazzetta dello Sport’s view from Italy of the 0-0 draw between Barcelona and Manchester United in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg.

Cristiano Ronaldo’s early penalty soaring well wide of the goal summed up the whole night, with Barca pressing hard but failing to find that extra bit of inspiration to break the deadlock.

But can we expect anything more when the prize is so huge? Games in the previous two rounds such as Liverpool v Arsenal were surprisingly open given the importance of the Champions League these days.

Liverpool 3 AC Milan 3 in 2005 was a rare example of a great final. How may good World Cup finals have their been?

Players are only human and nerves at this stage are bound to play a part. That doesn’t mean games have to be dull for the purists. Liverpool 1 Chelsea 1 on Tuesday was not a classic but watching players stick to their positions and Rafa Benitez barking out tactical instructions still made it interesting.

Maybe the Italians, famous for their ultra conservative approach to soccer,  are just bitter Serie A teams have performed so poorly in the Champions League this term. 

Mark Meadows, Milan

Chelsea’s 1-1 Champions League draw at Liverpool on Tuesday was all about Avram Grant getting a reprieve from the hacks who only days earlier said his time under Roman Abramovich was almost up.

No question that Chelsea were poorer on the night. Liverpool should have had one or two more goals in reserve for the return leg at Stamford Bridge before John Arne Riise’s injury time own goal gave the Blues a huge boost. It also lifted the pressure from Grant for now, at least.

If he makes it to the final in Moscow, Grant will have surpassed Jose Mourinho’s efforts with Chelsea in the competition, but will the press notice? Probably not. Grant’s supporters complain that after more than half a year in the job, Mourinho is still getting the credit for his successor’s achievements.

There can be no doubt that former Israel coach Grant has adequate coaching abilities even if some of his critics point to the fact that before the Chelsea hot seat he was never tested at such a high level.

Like many Israelis who regard him as an ambassador of the Jewish state and its soccer, Grant undoubtedly feels that because he is an outsider from a small nation of modest sporting achievements, he will never gain the respect he deserves.

How frustrating it must be when you appear from nowhere, do so much better than anyone imagined, you are still in the running for silverware at the end of the season, and yet you are told most mornings that the axe is about to fall on your head.

Much boils down to Grant’s inability to keep the jounalists on-side and because this rather grey character stepped right into the shoes of Mourinho, their darling.

Back home, his detractors said he used an agreeable manner to befriend reporters and neutralise them as critics. They also said he relied more on luck than on coaching ability - Riise is a new bit of ammo for them. But Grant’s supporters said that his style, which was more to be the players’ friend and rely less on discipline, was a formula guaranteed to succeed.

Talk from the dressing room certainly suggested that Israeli players liked working with Grant. He also appeared to usually find favour with the heads of the Israeli FA, but the bottom line was that he was delivering results.

Many Israelis take it almost personally when something bad is said or written about Grant in the UK. Certainly, in view of his good results, they feel he does not deserve the frosty reception he gets in some of the British media.

But Israelis and perhaps Grant himself have not fathomed the difference between the relatively small number of Israeli reporters, who for the most part are more forgiving, and the school of British sharks who are far less willing to compromise in the cut-throat U.K. media marketplace.

Ori Lewis is a Reuters correspondent based in Jerusalem

John Arne Riise’s astonishing own goal seems to have given Chelsea the edge in the first Champions League semi-final.

Liverpool’s Norwegian defender bent down to spectacularly head in deep into injury time and leave the scores at 1-1 ahead of the second leg at Stamford Bridge.

Has their ever been a more important own goal? Liverpool were the better side on the night and looked to be easing to a 1-0 first-leg advantage after Dirk Kuyt’s first-half strike. To have that lead ripped away so late and in such a strange fashion cannot have helped their confidence while it has given Chelsea a boost they barely deserved.

Colombia defender Andres Escobar scored an own goal in the 1994 World Cup which knocked them out. He was later shot dead in his home town. Des Walker and Steven Gerrard beat their own keepers in Cup finals but with the importance of the Champions League these days, Riise’s feat will be long remembered.

It may be important for some, but for many neutrals it is certainly one of the funniest football moments.

PHOTO: Liverpool’s John Arne Riise scores an own goal against Chelsea during their Champions League semi-final first leg at Anfield, April 22. REUTERS/Phil Noble

Juventus are to become the first Italian club to have their stadium sponsored.

The concept is so alien to Italians that Juve had to hold a presentation in Milan this week to explain what it was all about, and to look for sponsors. I went along hoping to speak to the directors about potential transfers but most of my Italian colleagues asked question after question about this strange new marketing trend.

Having attended the first game at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton 11 years ago, I’ve become rather used to the idea and don’t think it differs much to sponsored shirts.

Certainly in the case of Bolton Wanderers, the revenue from the sponsorship deal has gone a long way to helping them stay in the Premier League. Several of Germany’s excellent stadiums built ahead of the 2006 World Cup are sponsored, like Munich’s Allianz Arena, and fans there are generally happy.

But should we be worried about where all this is heading? Does every time we mention the name sound like an advert?

The Veltins Arena in Gelsenkirchen sounds better than Arena AufSchalke, but do we really want existing stadiums changing their names? Hamburg’s stadium changed sponsors after just six years.

Many basketball and cycling teams in Europe even have sponsors in their name. I don’t think fans will want major soccer clubs to go that far, but it has already been tried with TNS in Wales and others will definitely follow.

Mark Meadows, Reuters Sports Correspondent in Milan

Bizarre as it sounds, UEFA announced last week it was publishing a dictionary.

Teaming up with German reference book publishers Langenscheidt, European soccer’s governing body has produced a dictionary with around 2,000 “official” football terms, handily translated into English, French and German.

You can’t help but imagine some wonderful uses for this important academic work.

Today’s jet-set millionaire coaches will surely grab a copy as they seek to make their multi-national squads understand the latest training ground routine. England coach Fabio Capello and Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich will meanwhile be delighted to know that Italian and Russian editions are planned should the first edition prove a success.

Cynicism aside, however, a quick flick through the pages suggests the dictionary might not be such a daft idea. UEFA acknowledge the book is aimed primarily at the sport’s administrators with entries covering areas such as security and stadium terminology, descriptions of sporting equipment, medical terms and phrases commonly used in sports management.

But there is plenty of material that regular fans might want to take a look at. UEFA’s head of languages suggested to me that long-suffering wives of football fans might want to sneakily purchase a copy if they want to impress their husbands during Euro 2008. I reckon some of the entries might justify those husbands taking a furtive look themselves though, particularly those armchair experts who like to claim a greater knowledge of the sport’s intricacies than they truly possess.

There are official answers for those who don’t want to admit that they still don’t understand the new offside rule, or when a free kick should be direct or indirect. Some concise definitions of tactical formations are also useful for fans who might know what a 4-2-3-1 looks like but not when it should be used.

According to the dictionary, 4-2-3-1 is a “relatively defensive formation using a back four, two holding midfielders to screen the defence but also to initiate attacks, three attacking midfielders and one forward”. A 5-3-2 on the other hand is a “defensive system of play… which is heavily reliant on two wing backs occasionally providing width for the team when attacking.”

Overall I would say it is not a bad addition to a football fan’s bookshelf, although UEFA seems to be scraping the barrel for material at times.

If a second edition is ever published UEFA might want to ask if we really need definitions for ‘kicking with the outside of the foot’ (which amazingly means “striking the ball with the edge of the foot”) or ‘replacement of a defective ball’ (”exchange of a ball that bursts or is no longer suitable for play during the course of the match”).

Mark Ledsom, Berne

PHOTO: A Euro 2008 assistant referee attends a workshop near Zurich in preparation for the upcoming tournament, April 17 REUTERS/Christian Hartmann

Has it reached the stage where a Champions League semi-final is not enough to safeguard a coach’s job?

Avram Grant, whose Chelsea side visit Liverpool in their first leg on Tuesday, is under pressure despite his team stil having an outside chance of the Premier League title.

Boardroom squabbles mean Rafa Benitez is not 100 percent certain to be at Anfield next season while Barcelona’s Frank Rijkaard desperately needs a win against Manchester United on Wednesday to deflect attention from Primera Liga disappointment.

And what about poor Roberto Mancini? He is on the verge of leading Inter Milan to another scudettoand yet the papers are again full of talk that Jose Mourinho is San Siro-bound.

Surely the problems at PSG and Valencia show what real failure is like? Our dynamic duo Owen Wyatt and Jon Bramley discuss the pressure on coaches these days and want your views.  

Leave a comment below in the usual way or post a video response to youtube or wherever, tag it “Vlog on the pitch” and we’ll load it up here if we like it.

The German-language speaking skills of Italy’s Luca Toni and France’s Franck Ribery have suddenly become a bit of an obsession in the German media (I mentioned Toni’s one-word vocabulary last week).

There was a great quote from Toni a few days later explaining just how little work they do in the two language classes they have per week alongside their Argentine colleague Jose Ernesto Sosa.

“It’s a lot of fun because the teacher tries to explain something to us and we each answer in our own way,” Toni was quoted as saying in an interview with Tuttosport. “Me with an Italian accent, Ribery with a French accent and Sosa with an Argentine accent. We laugh a lot but at the end of the day we don’t learn much.”

Rarely have players made such light of communication difficulties as Ribery and Toni. The Italian scored Bayern’s first in the 2-1 Cup final win over Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, converting easily after a great run and cross from the French midfielder.

Toni got the winner, too – diverting a shot from Lukas Podolski in extra-time for his 35th goal since arriving from Fiorentina last year. It was the fourth game in a row featuring two goals from Toni, who has been pushing Bayern management to sign another Italian next season so he’ll have someone to talk to.

Actually, credit where it’s due, because after the Cup final the two players gave their German-speaking debuts on local TV.

“Das ist eine Wasser,” (This is a water) Ribery said in German that was somewhat less than grammatically correct as he squirted a bottle full of water on Toni, who was in the midst of an interview (in Italian). 

Toni also showed those language lessons had not been for nothing. Asked how his German was coming along he just said: “Langsam, langsam” (slowly).

Remember, Toni was a late developer as a striker, too, so this time next year he’ll probably be fluent in ‘the awful German language’.

Erik Kirschbaum, Berlin

PHOTO: Toni and Ribery celebrate after the Italian’s second goal in Bayern’s German Cup final win over Borussia Dortmund at the Olympiastadion in Berlin, April 19, 2008. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

There’s speculation in Marca today that if AC Milan do complete a deal to sign Ronaldinho at the end of the season, they might be prepared to let Kaka move to Real Madrid.

That got me thinking about what the other knock-on effects might be, and especially about whether Barcelona would feel obliged to sign another big-name player as a replacement.

My own view is that this would be a good time for Barcelona to go down a different route. Ever since Joan Laporta took over as president they’ve pursued a relentless policy of buying in top names, from Ronaldinho to Deco, Samuel Eto’o and on to Thierry Henry.

For the first couple of seasons it worked very well, as the club regained their status as European heavyweights, won the league title and went on to claim the Champions League. Now, though, is surely the time to say enough is enough.

If Ronaldinho does go, the coach (whoever that might be) will still be able to call on Henry, Eto’o, Messi, Bojan and Giovani to fill the forward positions. And that’s the main difference between Barcelona now and Real Madrid when they were reaching the end of their ‘galactico’ era.

Real were so focused on their megastars that the squad as a whole had a threadbare look about it, which became increasingly obvious as time wore on. Barcelona have no such problems and if they manage to resist the temptation to throw money at another major forward it should just mean more space to grow for Bojan et al.

What do you reckon? Should Barcelona go out and sign a direct replacement — a Kaka, for example? Should they throw money at the Premier League to get a Torres or a Gerrard, Cesc Fabregas or even Cristiano Ronaldo (presumably untouchable, but you never know)? And while we’re at it, should Real Madrid pursue their interest in long-term target Kaka? Give us your ideas in the comments.

PHOTO: Kaka reacts during Milan’s Serie A game against AS Roma in Rome March 15, 2008. REUTERS/Chris Helgren

Flying elbows, mass punch-ups, mouthy players, shirt-tuggers and divers will be the main focus for referees when Euro 2008 kicks off in June.

UEFA handed a six-point list of instructions on Thursday to the 12 referees officiating at the tournament in Switzerland and Austria.

Referees will crack down on players who hold or push opponents during free kicks or corners. Mass confrontations between players will be dealt with by issuing a yellow card to at least one player from each team. When it comes to dissent, officials have been told they can accept “a spontaneous expression of frustration from players” but anything more than that will warrant a sanction.

UEFA will also use video evidence to punish divers and cheats who succeed in fooling the referee at Euro 2008, having trialled the idea in the Champions League.

The emphasis on shirt-tugging and the use of elbows also follows a crackdown in the Champions League, so UEFA argues the players have been warned.

At Thursday’s get-together in Zurich the match officials said they were ready to strictly apply the guidelines. Asked if he was prepared to award a penalty for a shirt tug in the first five minutes of the tournament’s opening match, one referee said he would be quite happy to award five penalties if necessary.

Is UEFA right in calling for greater respect for and stricter adherence to the rules or will a flurry of red cards and penalties ruin the tournament? Would you rather see a crackdown in other areas such as time-wasting?

A disaffected relationship between a coach and his employers would ordinarily lead to a end of that relationship, either through resignation or dismissal.

In Cameroon, however, it is not that simple. A web of entanglement between the state and football means we’ve arrived at the ridiculous situation where the national coach Otto Pfister has been effectively handed divorce papers but continues in his job.

The Cameroon Football Federation recently decided it no longer wants anything to do with the German coach, but they are not able to fire him.

Pfister was employed last November as coach of the team to replace Jules Nyongha, even though the local had successfully qualified Cameroon for the 2008 African Nations Cup.

The decision to hire a new coach, even though the team seemed to be performing well, was taken by both the federation and the country’s sports ministry. But because the sports ministry pays the salary of the coach, the final choice of Pfister was made by government as opposed to the Federation.

The choice of Pfister was not accepted by the Federation, who publicly stated its objection as the coach arrived in Yaoundé for contract discussions with the sports ministry.

In the end, though, political pressure on Federation president Mohamed Iya was such that he dropped his objections, and Pfister went on to take Cameroon to a surprise place in the Nations Cup final, where they lost to Egypt.

Now that the celebrations have fizzled out, and in spite of the Nations Cup achievement, the Federation wants Pfister out. But because they don’t directly employ him, they can’t fire him. So, perhaps for the first time in soccer, they have divorced the coach instead.

Mark Gleeson covers African football for Reuters

PHOTO: Cameroon coach Pfister celebrates a goal against Ghana in the African Nations Cup semi-final in Accra, February 7, 2008. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko