"he ain't gonna be pretty no more."

Holy mother of Maldini.

Spain is obviously an extremely pleasant place to play top-flight football.

As the country's last hope of Champions' League glory (even we aren't deludoed enough to give an inch to Madrid, whose antics this season have made it more than evident that sometimes, winning a football match is the least glorious thing a club can do) lived up to expectations by vaulting over an injury-hit Internazionale on away goals, one man came up to break the unhappy Nicolas Burdisso's nose. And much blood flowed. Clearly, the continent is now the place to go if the tickets to a Martin Scorsese show have run out. Unhappy young men washing away the standing ruins of their identity and integrity in the blood of other drifters.

Needless to say, we are incredibly disheartened. We love football fights when they limit themselves to superstar bitching and whining. We prefer to watch Scorsese for lessons on the breakdown of male identity.

And thankful we don't appear to support Inter, who are now facing charges from the UEFA that could have some very serious consequences for them, since they carry forward previous incidents of violence (more fannish than on-pitch, we believe) on their record, most memorably the injuring of Dida with a live flare from the stands during a Milan derby in 2005. We also await the judgment on Valencia, which we hope will reflect their rather greater part in yesterday's degrading little mess.

Seriously, people. Has the malevolent power of Craig Bellamy visited itself upon you all?



In other news: Roma pleasantly surprises everyone who thought they were crap. They're going fairly great guns in Serie A, and they're a beautiful team to watch, most times, so we're pleased. No surprises for Chelsea at home versus Porto, and Eidur Gudjohnsen doesn't do enough in that other little game we all forgot about.