Monday 1 June 2015 22:24, UK
Ahead of Saturday's Champions League final between Barcelona and Juventus, we spoke to Marco van Basten, Nissan's ambassador for their UEFA Champions League Final activity in Berlin, to get his take on the game.
The three-time Ballon d’Or winner was part of the AC Milan team that won the European Cup back-to-back in 1989 and 1990, a feat no team has repeated since.
Van Basten shared his views on why Juventus are the exception in Italian football, how Barcelona can be stopped and why he’s surprised that Luis Suarez is now flourishing at the Nou Camp…
Suarez surprise
Van Basten was head coach at Ajax for part of Suarez’s three-and-a-half year stay at the club and remembers the Uruguayan forward’s extraordinary desire to succeed.
“He’s very emotional,” Van Basten told Sky Sports. “He’s a real winner too. He wants to make goals, he wants to play and he wants to attack. He has developed himself in a very good way so he’s a big striker in world football at the moment.
“I knew that he was a winner and that he was a very good player, always creating chances, threatening the goal and causing problems for the opponent. He made a good impression at Liverpool but he’s getting stronger and stronger.”
Even so, Van Basten did not envisage Suarez fitting in quite as effectively as he has at Barcelona given the team’s unique style of play.
“I was expecting him to be a really good player but I didn’t think of him playing for a team like Barcelona,” added Van Basten. “I felt he’d be more suited to a team like Juventus or Inter because the football in Italy is a bit different to the football they play at Barcelona.
“Barca play a really clever type of football, close together with everybody at a high level technically. I think he is more of an opportunistic forward who should just go forward and see what happens. He does that in a marvellous way but it’s not the way he plays at Barcelona.”
That man Messi…
Van Basten played with Johan Cruyff at Ajax, faced Diego Maradona during his Napoli pomp and coached his country against Lionel Messi at a World Cup. It puts him in a unique position to rate the Barcelona man. “I think he’s a truly great player. He’s on the level with Pele, Cruyff and Maradona.
“I think Maradona was more of a fighter. Maradona was strong and mean. He could be a really difficult person as he tried everything to win. Messi is just a fantastic player. I think he’s a little bit quieter than Maradona was but they both have unbelievable skills.”
So can Barcelona be stopped?
With Suarez adding another dimension to an already talented Barcelona side, the debate continues regarding how best to stop the Spanish champions. Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola tried it his own way with a high line and man-for-man pressing against his old team in the semi-final only to lose 5-3 on aggregate and Van Basten has some sympathy for those tactics.
“I think that Pep Guardiola had bad luck because he was not able to use his best line-up,” said Van Basten. “He was not able to field Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery or David Alaba. They were not fit against Barcelona. That’s a pity because I really wanted to see a good game between these two teams. But it wasn’t like that.
“If you want to make Barcelona have a difficult evening then you have to defend really well. You have to make sure you don’t give a lot of space to Lionel Messi or Andres Iniesta and also make sure they don’t get any time. So you should be very compact and close to each other, remaining alert while they have the ball. On the other hand, you also have to go on the attack too.”
So does he feel the Italian champions have a chance? “I don’t think Juventus are as good as Barcelona but they are also able to attack as they have shown in winning the double in Italy. They can create as well.
“The good thing for Juventus is that they are a team that understands and reads the flow of the game. So if they feel they need to defend they have the discipline to defend, but if they have the possibility to attack they will go forward. That’s what gives them the chance to beat Barca.”
What’s happened to Italian football?
It’s been a difficult time for Serie A but Van Basten believes the team from Turin are a unique case. “Juventus are an exception. They have had a new start since they came back from Serie B. They are organised and they have their own stadium. If you compare that to Milan, Inter, Roma or any of the other clubs, they all still have big problems. In that case, Juventus is an example for all Italian clubs.”
So does it sadden the former Milan hero to see his old side – the seven-time European champions no less - struggling in mid-table? “Sad is a big word. I have a lot of sympathy for Milan but if you look what’s happened in the past 10 years they have gone down so much. When I was playing you had 85,000 every week in the San Siro. Now you have maybe 30,000. The level of the players is just poor.
“It’s also a matter of money. It’s a pity that 20 years ago Italy had everything. All the money, all the players and all the attention was in Italy. But there have been so many different stories with corruption, referees and money that everything went out of their hands. Now it’s difficult to come back, but Italy is still a great football country. You can see how important it still is for every Italian.”
Can anyone replicate Milan?
One thing that Milan fans can still boast is that, a quarter of a century on, they remain the last team to lift the European Cup in back-to-back seasons and Van Basten thinks a repeat in the near future is far from inevitable. “We were the last team to do it and it’s not easy,” he said.
“Winning the Champions League is the most important cup you can win as a player in club football and to do it twice you need to be the best for two years in a row. You can’t afford a bad game because that’ll be the end of the road.
“I think that football is also a little bit more predictable than it was 20 years ago. If you look at the last eight of the Champions League, it will include the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus so you probably have to play against one of these big clubs.
“I think 20 years ago it was not like that. You maybe had three or four good teams but with a little bit of luck you could reach the semi-finals a little bit easier. That’s an important point in understanding why it’s a little bit more difficult to win it two years in a row.”
So who does he want to win?
Van Basten concluded: “If Barcelona are allowed to play their game – that means nice football in an attacking way – with nice moments from Messi and Iniesta then I hope Barcelona win. But I lived for 10 years in Italy so I am half Italian. I hope that for the Italian people, Juve win the Champions League. That would be good for Italian football. But mainly I hope the best team wins the cup.”
Marco van Basten is a Nissan ambassador for the UEFA Champions League Final, where they will be harnessing fan energy to power the trophy to the Olympiastadion in Berlin on 6th June. Search ‘Nissan UEFA Champions League’ for details.
