Champion Leagues holders AC Milan won a record 5th Super Cup title with a sound 3-1 win over UEFA champions Sevilla.

Renato open the scoring for Sevilla, but driven by the class play of Alessandro Nesta and Andrea Pirlo, Milan hit back with three unanswered goals from Filippo Inzaghi (who else?), Marek Jankulovski and Kaka (surprise!).

The victory, as you probably already know, was marked by the recent death of Sevilla player Antonio Puerta. Both sides did justice to honour his memory. AC Milan offered Sevilla to move the date of the game but Sevilla opted to play the match with heavy hearts. Milan, in a gesture of solidarity with its Latin cousins, carried Puerta’s name on the back of their uniforms. Following the game rossoneri midfielder Kaka dedicated the match to Puerta’s memory.

With its latest triumph, the Milanisti recorded its 17th trophy (when Champions League, UEFA Cup, the now defunct Cup Winners’, Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup are combined) most of any club in Europe.

Sevilla was seeking its fourth trophy and 2nd UEFA Cup in as many years but it was not to be.

However, all talk of trophies and triumphs took a secondary role to the bigger realities of life during the 2007 edition of the Super Cup.

Indeed, the resonating chants from the Sevilla fans of “We love you, Puerta” left things in proper perspective. 

The first edition of North America’s Super Liga goes to Mexico. CF Pachuca prevailed with a 4-3 shoot out victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy after the two sides failed to settle a 1-1 draw through the extra time session. Well-deserved bragging rights the Mexican Primera.

This Pachuca’s fourth title in the last 12 months. In addition to its latest triumph, the “Los Tuzos” also won the Mexican title, the CONCACAF Champions Cup and the Copa Sudamericana title.

My thoughts? As if anyone asked. For starters, you have to start feeling bad for David Beckham. Come on! A little no? In the 30th minute of the match he and an opposing player collided leaving Beckham with a possible serious knee injury. For now they are calling it a sprain.

Whatever it is, both England and Los Angeles cry. England because they have important upcoming Euro 2008 qualifiers and the Los Angeles because they see $250 million turning to mush.

The chance at Super Liga glory (and I use the term lightly) was the Galaxy’s only shot at salvaging a forgettable MLS season. It was also a chance for Canadian head coach of the Galaxy Frank Yallop bide his time on the apparent firing line given the team’s poor results this season. It’ll be hard with Jurgen Klinsmann apparently eyeing the job.

As it’s turning out, Beckham couldn’t save the Galaxy. How is he expected to carry an entire league on his shoulders?

One could see Beckham was visibly upset about the injury. “I’m devastated to have been taken out of the game when I was because I was looking forward to this game. I’ve been given the rest to try and get my ankle feeling better and it felt better.”

Ah, the dangers of marketing.

The game itself did reveal a few things. Pachuca soundly outclassed L.A. in the first half with classic one-touch passing and a quickened pace that gave all sorts of trouble for a naive Galaxy defense. L.A. did provide some class of its own by wearing black arm bands to honour the sudden and tragic death of Sevilla’s Antonio Puerta.

Though the Mexicans did control play over a lethargic American side, it took an own goal to beat Galaxy keeper Joe Cannon. Without Cannon’s heroics, Pachuca could easily have been up two or three goals by half time.

The Americans made some adjustments and did improve play in the second 45. In the end, it was not enough. Indeed, with this loss questions are being raised - as is usually the case when a team loses. First among them raised by Galaxy fans is if Landon Donovan can be a true world class striker at critical moments. He missed a penalty kick that could have given his team the lead. Of course, this same criticism was directed to him during the 2006 World Cup after his poor form with Team USA.

The other debate is whether Mexican soccer is prepared to take any tournaments that involve the MLS seriously. The answer to that is they should. MLS quality of play has improved and will continue to do so. Once it does we will be in for some solid (maybe even sparkling) football in the future.

All in all a good first start for the Super Liga.

Now to do something to increase the 12 500 that were in attendance for the game. But that’s for next year.

Before the match everybody in Holland, well not everybody but alot of people, were confident that Ajax was going to go in and win this match. They would just go in there and bend the 1-0 loss into a comfortable win. And with won matches in the Dutch Eredivisie against SC Heerenveen 4-1 and a monsterscore of 8-1 versus De Graafschap , Ajax believed that the 1-0 loss versus Slavia Prague was just a slip.

Unfortunately for Ajax the only way they were bending was over. Slavia Prague turned out to be a team , something that Ajax is not yet. Slavia Prague took a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute with a goal very well rounded off by Prague Captain Stanislav Vlcek. Luis Suarez, a new player with a controversial transferstory, equalised in the 33th minute with an assist from Huntelaar. The two of them seem to be bonding telephatically since they manage to find each other blindly. Ajax dominated much of the second half but failed in rounding off their fairly well created chances. And just before the final signal Slavia Prague gave Ajax the final blow scoring the 2-1 and Ajax has failed achieving it’s main objective for the season: Playing Champions League football.

Many reasons are cited for Ajax’ loss , like the sale of youngster Ryan Babel but also the loss of Ajax’ midfield general Wesley Sneijder and the absence of veteran midfielder Edgar Davids. But you can also argue that even with the loss of starplayer Sneijder Ajax should still be able to win matches because Ajax is more than just Wesley Sneijder.

Then there is the matter of the coach. Henk ten Cate has promised many things since his appointment but fails to achieve most of the objectives and it is expected that this is going to be his last season with the former Dutch giants. The only thing that can give Ten Cate some status this season is winning the dutch League title.

Ajax were once a great team with many many great creative and technically gifted players but they are slowly sliding down to mediocrity.