I FEEL that justice was done with the Juventus victory. When you recall the tragic circumstances of that fateful night 11 years ago at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, it is worth remembering that it was a hollow victory for Juventus.

I felt that the bold attacking policy of the Juventus coach, Marcello Lippi, in playing the three pronged strike force of Fabrizio Ravanelli, Gianluca Vialli and Alessandro Del Piero was fully rewarded, ironically in a manner similar to the rewards reaped in this same final 12 months ago when Ajax beat AC Milan 1-0.

The constant movement and interchanging of the Juventus attacking trio caused the Ajax three man defence more problems than they had previously encountered.

Taking into account that the Juventus goal came from a bad error by Ajax goalkeeper Edwin Vander Sar, and without taking anything away from Ravanelli's opportunism, Juventus fully deserved that goal. I felt that Juventus were much more positive, quicker in speed of thought and of movement and more hungry than the Dutch champions.

Even through the terrific support of the largely pro Juventus crowd clearly was a big advantage to the Italian side, it is also true that they had to overcome immense psychological and emotive pressures playing here in Italy and playing in their first Champions' Cup final since the tragic Heysel night.

Even though the match ended in a 1-1 draw after extra time, I felt that such was the Juventus domination in the first 30 minutes that they should have scored a second goal and perhaps wrapped up the match by halftime. Indeed, it was only a schoolboy howler of a mistake by Italian international goalkeeper Peruzzi, who punched away Frank De Boer's free kick when he ought to have caught it, which allowed Ajax back into the game, against nearly all the run of play to that moment.

I can imagine that at half time the coach Van Gaal told his players that could not possibly play as badly in the second half, that they were right back in the match, albeit luckily, and that they had just delivered a major psychological blow to Juventus. He probably told them to go out and take the game by the scruff of the neck.

However, it was not to be Ajax's night, even with the half time substitution of Patrick Eluivert and the consequent tactical redeployment of the Ajax forces.

In truth, the Dutch side never really matched the aggression of the Italians. Even a slight Ajax second half improvement could not hide the fact that, for me, Juventus always looked the team most likely to win.

I even suspect that Juventus could have won the game in the 90 minutes if they had not pulled off Ravanelli, replacing him with Michele Padovano. For it was the substitute striker who had, to my mind, one of the best chances of the gage from one of the best crosses of the game from over lapping right back Moreno Torricelli in the last five minutes of normal time.

I thought that extra time was an anticlimax punctuated by misplaced passes, desperate tackles and general fatigue. At that stage, I felt that it was only justice that it go to penalties since both sides had run out of the ideas, ability and flair that would win the game.

For me, it brought back memories of 12 years ago here when Liverpool upset all the odds when defeating home town heroes. AS Roma, also in a nerve racking penalty shoot out. However, there was one major difference between 12 years ago and last night and that was that I really felt that Juventus deserved to win while the Liverpool Roma game could have gone either way.

Although penalty shoot outs are something of a lottery, I was really impressed by the decisive manner in which the Serb Vladimir Jugovic knocked home the all critical) fourth Juventus penalty. Remember, this is a player who had been there before, scoring an equally decisive goal for Red Star Belgrade when they beat Olympique Marseilles in a shoot out at the end of the 1991 Champions Cup final.

Juventus goalkeeper Peruzzi made probably the best save of the night when saving Silooy's penalty thus going some way to atoning for his mistake in the build up tub Litmanen's first half equaliser for Ajax. On the negative side, however, I felt that overall the most prestigious club game of the European year will be remembered more for mistakes made than for fast free flowing football.