Silvio Berlusconi

yeah uh we're talking off here this is the kind of the last of the the last year of the european cup interregnum anyway where there's this kind of weird selection of winners kind of weird uh before saki's milan do what they do next season and the season after and then really setting the way to the the super clubs dominating and the champions league being born it's all that um so we've got a bit of that and what might be the worst final, I know Stoy and Barca have got a red star in Marseille to come but how the winners eventually did that is of some kind of interest the UEFA Cup doing what it's seems to do so often which is a three goal first leg league well that's not necessarily enough lads so many big swings in that competition and a bit of the romantic a bit of the fairy tale in the Cup Winners Cup let's start with the big trophy Michael the European Champions Cup of 87-88 episode one of this series I spoke at the pleasure of speaking to Alex Finn about What that draw started, the chain reaction that it started that led ultimately to the Champions League.

His stalking horse that he put together for Silvio Berlusconi about a European Super League.

Because, Michael, in the first round, in the open draw, the champions of Spain, the mighty Real Madrid, were pitted against the champions of Italy, Diego Maradona's Napoli.

And he looked on thinking, well, this is madness.

i was just going to say i think italian football is full of crazy stories that it's hard to reel them off because you've got things from mental presidents to scandals as well, not just footballing side of things.

So if you can catch any of the sort of Berlusconi era, it's problematic, but mental, like an interesting sort of situation.

Yeah.

I like, and Mark, you might know his name.

There's just stories like that through Italian football, which is partially probably why it's where it's at now.

I mean, it's funny because you mentioned like,

you mentioned about sort of Fiorentina's current president, but like one of the things about the kind of, that kind of Gazetta era was like, we knew all the presidents, like, you know, you, obviously you knew like Moratti and Agnelli, they were, but Berlusconi, but like Cragnotti at Lazio, we knew him, Cecchi Gori was the, it came, I couldn't get it a moment ago, but it came to me.

the he was the fiorentina winner he was a bit mad he was a film producer it seems to be

Cardinal, do me a favor, bro.

If you want to be like Berlusconi, The number one thing you need to remember is Berlusconi made the team win.

All right? He didn't fucking cut corners.

He didn't go into this analytics bullshit back in 1986.

And I could tell you how we were so different because he would say, oh, are you going to vote for the, I don't know, Claudia, might it be the conservative party? I'm like, nah, I don't think I'm going to do that.

Well, who are you going to vote for? I'm like, I think Berlusconi.

And he would lose his shit, Claudia.

Why are you voting for him? I'm like, but Dad, he colours his hair.

But of course, that's not true.

We see after 2008, we see people like Berlusconi in Italy, and Erdogan shifts his tone in Turkey, Modi comes to power in India, etc.

So we see a rise of a certain type of figure.

And eventually it comes back home to roost in the United States when we get Trump, and then we have the Biden interregnum, and then Trump is back again now.