I have a crystal ball which has been simply magical for years. Just a faint glance, I knew Manchester United will beat Chelsea at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome and after an uncomfortable 5 minute stare last year, Barcelona 3, United 1 popped up. Okay the Moscow match ended 2 – 0 in favour of the Catalonia football team. This season I had trusted it, but silently convinced it was becoming faulty. Madrid over Lyon was going to be a walk in the park it said, but in the end, the £250 million real estate collapsed emitting a cloud akin to the Icelandic Eyjafjallajoekull volcanic ash. When Robben’s beautifully struck half volley pierced the aspirations of United, I was perhaps still in denial, reluctant to accept the obvious fact that two huge mistakes was too much for anything described as “magical”. Last night it went dim following Barcelona’s ouster.

Right now I am in a huge mess. I am left bare with only my pure analytic skills, fluid at best, to fall on in predicting the winner between Bayern Munich and Inter Milan, two teams that has shown an uncanny ability to bring out the best with their backs against the wall. In Louis Van Gaal and Jose Mourinho, we have two coaches that have seen success at this level and as such unlikely to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of the occasion. They are also quite hungry to prove a point or two to their respective boards, one having started the season badly, while the other has publicly aired his desire to leave.

For those of us expecting any football on the 22nd of next month, we are in for a disappointing 90 minutes. While Jose is generally considered as negative in his style, putting victory, at all cost, above every other thing, Van Gal is presently not far off. He came into prominence with an Ajax team that played a breath taking attacking football, mesmerizing the likes of Real Madrid even at the Bernabeu in the mid nineties. Interestingly, Louis has shed a lot of his beautiful play, settling for efficiency laced with negative antics. So both coaches can come up with the kind of tactics to nullify any taint of decent play, Inter Milan is perhaps ahead of Bayern Munich based on a pound for pound profile of individual football players but surely this match may offer a glimpse into the future of football, where game fullness is striped off and replaced with all manner of tricks and con tactics. Welcome to Mourinho’s world.