Are English clubs still the football Masters of Europe or has something changed compared to last season, which as history has shown was unequivocally and irrevocably dominated by Premier League teams?

Attempting to provide the first part of the answer next week will be three clubs of Serie A. While Scudetto holders and current league leaders Inter Milan prepare to face off against European Champions Manchester United, Ranieri’s Juventus will attempt to surprise Hiddink’s Chelsea and the young guns of Arsenal will face off against the imperial armada of AS Roma. Three very appetizing, but also very difficult encounters for Italian Football’s remaining UCL representatives, and three matches which should tell us once and for all whether the technical gap between EPL and Serie A has finally been filled.

As this “triple thrill” draws nearer, Gazzetta dello Sport‘s website has decided to make a special presentation of the event. Armed with the full arsenal of multimedia tools at their disposal (so that their readers arrive to D-Day fully prepared) the famous Italian newspaper will be providing Italian fans with a variety of news-goodies, such as last-minute team news, tips, pointers & city directions for travelling fans, betting advice, but also a video section to analyze our EPL opponents’ technical traits: five video clips on Man Utd, five on Chelsea, and another five on Arsenal. In other words true “eye-candy” for footy lovers but also a useful informational tool for the non-EPL follower.

Wait, there’s more! No match preview would ever be complete without the traditional “key clashes” section (this is where the author usually picks two or three players from each team to put face-to-face, anticipating some of the key determining battles for the final victory). Well how about doing eleven (or more!) of these face-to-face profiles? That’s what Gazzetta did, featuring much anticipated duels such as Ibrahimovic vs. C-Ron, Buffon vs. Cech, Vucinic vs. Van Persie, etc. (ok so they’re not doing direct duels i.e. defender vs. striker in the traditional sense, but these are still useful).

The bad news? You have to speak Italian, as this section is only available on Gazzetta.it. The good news? I’ll begin doing a partial translation when the week starts on Monday, so you can get at least part of the UCL-preview goodness the of the pink newspaper has to offer.

Stay tuned…

Tags: Arsenal, Chelsea, English Premiership, EPL, Gazzetta, Gazzetta dello Sport, Inter, Juventus, Manchester United, Roma, Serie A, UEFA Champions League

Posted in English Premiership, Serie A, UEFA Champions League |

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 21st, 2009 at 1:08 am and is filed under English Premiership, Serie A, UEFA Champions League. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.