See Real for breakfast

Indeed we did, as Juventus hosted Real Madrid in this morning's opening UEFA Champions League Of Champions Semi Final leg one fixture. It's the first time Juve has made a UCLOCSF since 2003, and the first for any Italian team in faaaar too many years for the likes of a self-identifying wogball-loving wog like Your Correspondent. That '03 semi was also a Juve-Real contest, itself a rematch of the first European Cup final I watched live, back in 1998; Juve led by the terrifying trident of Pippo Inzaghi, del Piero and a pre-WC98 Zidane, facing the Real of Raul, Morientes, the Hair Bears (Karembeu and Seedorf), and of course Bob Carlos's arsey free kicks and comedy defence. Real nicked their seventh European Cup via Predrag Mijatović. Which made me happy, because fuck Juve.

I grew up in the sticks where there were two TV channels, neither of which were SBS, and only one of which occasionally gave a fuck about football (ABC, late on Monday nights when they'd show the highlights of the weekend's 'English soccer'.) I came to Italian football via the sports pages of my nonno's copies of Il Globo, and once SBS fuzzed into the area via UHF in the mid 90s, by Serie A highlights and the cynical baritone of Tony Palumbo on the World Game. By then I was a AC Milan fan. I could not tell you how I came to be an AC Milan fan, except that I did, and I am. In the 90s, it wasn't a bad thing to be. At some point in the early-to-mid-90s one of the Amiga computer magazines put out an issue with a coverdisk demo - remember those? (No?) - of Sensible Soccer which gave you the chance to endlessly replay Milan vs Barca a la the '94 Euro Cup final, with the high-priced (and hence easier to control) footballing avatars of Maldini, van Basten, Ruud 'Sexy Football' Gullit, Romario, Zvoni Boban and One-Off-The-Wristo Stoichkov. Hardly even needed to buy the full game after that.

Being a Milan fan meant one thing: hating Juventus. Let's face it, being a fan of any club in Italy that wasn't Juventus meant hating Juventus. Juve were owned by the Agnellis, who owned FIAT; Juve ran the league. Juve had the refs in their pocket. Juve were cheating, diving cunts. Worst of all, Juve won a lot. Fuck those guys. Admittedly, Milan were owned by a far bigger cunt than any of the Agnellis, but the point remained. Every sports league has that club everyone hates, sometimes even more intensely than the love they have for their own club, be it Man U, Manly, Collingwood or the Yankees.

And yet, on a May morning in 2015, I find myself watching Juve host Real, and not booing Juve. Hell, actually wanting them to win. Fist-pumping when Tevez, the lost Escobar goon, won the penalty to put Juve ahead. Laughing at the dreadful Gareth Bale being replaced by a bloke called Jese, as if wearing an alice band and flouncing around inadequately didn't make you a big Jessie already. 

The fuck am I doing cheering for Juve?

Am I getting old and soft? Yes. Is this partly because Cristiano Ronaldo is a deeply objectionable oilslick who you'd boo at a funeral? Yes. Is this because Juve are all that Italy have? Sadly, yes.

And ironically, it's probably the result of them getting their comeuppance via Calciopoli. Sure, as fans, we'd all said for years Juve were cheats and Juve owned the refs. We didn't necessarily believe it. Turned out, it was true, and they got shitcanned for a couple of seasons. By the time they'd floated back to the top of Italian football like a resolutely buoyant turd, Italian football wasn't what it was, what it had always been. Partly as a result of those years without Juve being in the mix, the league was suffering, the clubs were broke, the stars had all fucked off to Spain, Germany or England, and the fans were kicking off in the streets. Serie A just didn't matter any more. Juve's won the last four titles at a canter; the league's so one-sided there's a risk of Italy becoming Scotland with better pizza. But right now, with the Milan and Rome clubs on a downswing, Juve is all that Italy has to carry the flag in Europe, and try to break up the tedious Real-Barca-Bayern troika that owns the Champions League Of Champion Champions With A Side Of Champignons these days.

And besides, Juve has Pirlo. Pirlo was and is a Milan player forever; we'll gloss over the fact we tried to put him out to pasture.

No Pirlo, no party.

The Doctor is OUT.