FEW PEOPLE could claim to be as well qualified as Giovanni Trappatoni to offer an opinion on tomorrow night's Champions Cup final in Munich between newly-crowned Italian champions Juventus and German side Borussia Dortmund. Fifty eight-year-old Trappatoni is a man whose recent career has encompassed both Juventus and German soccer, both Italian and German title wins.
Last Saturday, Trappatoni become the first Italian coach to win a major European league championship outside Italy when he led Bayern Munich to their 14th German title. Bayern beat Stuttgart 4-2, ironically just hours after his one-time club Juventus had lifted their 24th Italian title.
In only his second season in German soccer, Trappatoni has added a German title to the seven he won in Italy, six of them with Juventus in a remarkable decade between 1976-1986.
Although AS Roma have tried to tempt Trappatoni back to his native land, there is now no doubt that the former AC Milan player will stay at Munich, ready to lead Bayern in their Champions League campaign next season.
Indeed, Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer even went public last weekend with the offer of a contract extended beyond the year 2000, saying: "It's important to us that he stay with us and he will. With him we can enter a new era.
"If everyone was as dedicated and committed about their work as him, we would have won the title with a 20-point margin... The discussions with Roma are over, Trappatoni's heart is with Bayern."
At the second time of asking, then, Trappatoni has triumphed in Germany. Two years ago, he made his first big move to Bayern, crying off before the end of a miserable season which had seen the club eliminated from the Champions Cup, the German Cup and finish in a UEFA Cup spot in the league behind champions Borussia Dortmund.
Two years ago, Trappatoni himself suggested that much of the reason for his failure in Germany lay with his inability to adapt, culturally and linguistically, to German realities. Nowadays, says Beckenbauer, language is no longer a problem for his Italian coach.
"There are times all right when he cannot find the words he wants, but if you spend all year long with the players then in the end they get to understand him just the same."
This has been a curious year for Trappatoni at Bayern. In no sense has the side matched the seemingly-unstoppable progress of Juventus in Italy. Knocked out of the first round of the UEFA Cup by Spanish side Valencia last September, Bayern were always up there with the pace in the Bundesliga without ever establishing a commanding lead.
Going into Saturday's decisive second-last game, Bayern were only one point clear of second-placed Bayern Leverkusen and the title was won as much by Cologne's 4-0 defeat of Leverkusen, as by Bayern Munich's 4-2 win over Stuttgart.
For most of this season, too, Trappatoni has been arguing with his senior players - striker Juergen Klinsmann, old man Lothar Matthaeus, midfielder Mehmet Scholl, German international Mario Basler and Italian striker Ruggiero Rizzitelli have all given all-too-public expression to their discontent, either at being left out of the side or, mode often, at the overly-cautious defensive game practised by Trappatoni.
The Italian coach can laugh at it all now, safe in the knowledge that he has won the title and put the side in the lucrative Champions League, while also only too aware that his most prominent critic, Klinsmann, will be packing his bags and heading for Sampdoria in Italy next season.
"I fought with all of them all right, but they've all thanked me. Matthaeus is even thinking that he can make it to a fifth World Cup next year at the age of 37. Scholl and Basler managed to play side by side on the same team, something which no one in Germany thought possible ...
"As for Klinsmann, thanks to me he has now won his first-ever German title, while Rizzitelli proved a decisive player in the final stages of the season.
Satisfied as he is with his success at Bayern, Trappatoni has time to look ahead to tomorrow night's Dortmund-Juventus final.
Recent history favours Juventus since the two sides have met six-times in European ties in the last four years, with Juventus winning four, Dortmund one and one drawn.
Trappatoni himself, however, has another memory of a Champions Cup final involving "his" Juventus and a German side.
That final came in 1983 and saw Juventus beaten 1-0 by Hamhurg in a game where neutral opinion had expected a win for the Juventus All Stars - the side contained Frenchman Michel Platini, Pole Zibi Boniek plus Dino Zoff, Gaetano Scirea, Antonio Cabrini, Claudio Gentile, Marco Tardelli, Roberto Bettega, Paolo Rossi etc.
Trappatoni sees a big difference between his Juventus side and the one which Marcello Lippi sends out to face Dortmund tomorrow night.
"Unlike my side, Lippi's Juventus comes into this final after three years of success which have seen it thoroughly tested on the technical, tactical and mental levels. Unlike Dortmund, this Juventus side know how to adapt their game to deal with whatever comes their way.
"Of course, it's a one-off game and all that counts will be these 90 minutes, but Juventus can allow themselves a margin of error, whereas Borussia have to play the best game of their lives if they are to hope to win."
You heard it from the "maestro". Juventus to win.
