Well what a Milan Derby it was. AC Milan losing 4-3 at "home" to Internazionale. Inter went 3-0 up with goals from Crespo, Stankovic and Ibrahimovic, before Seedorf pulled one back. Materazzi then scored to make it 4-1, before Gilardino narrowed the gap to 2 with 15 minutes left to play, and then Kaka scored at the death to make it a tense finish. But Inter prevailed, and they deserved their victory. In a moment of controversy, Materazzi was sent off for a second bookable offence for "over-celebrating his goal". Now although Materazzi is one of the dirtier characters around, and has done enough in his career to be sent off a million times, giving him a second yellow card for this was very harsh. He didn't even take his shirt fully off, and you'd expect the referee to shown a little bit of understanding considering that it was such a big event.

On a side note, it's very disappointing that the guilty Italian sides have had their penalties reduced. Especially Juve, who have been cheating for years. They've only got caught recently, but they've been at it for very very long, and who knows how much of that success of theirs is legitimate. No backbone or courage has been shown in dealing with these teams, and it's an absolute let down. They should have been banned from Europe as well, but I think we all know now that FIFA and UEFA and everyone else is more interested in just worrying about the money and maintaining the status quo.

Teams like Inter and Roma have suffered for years, and I hope they really do well this season, because who knows what it will be like next year with Juve (probably) back in Serie A. Italian fans are amongst the most passionate in the world, and surely they should be creating more opposition to the spinelessness of the Italian FA and their pathetic attempts at dealing with match fixers. On the one hand we have billionaires like Roman Abramovich destroying the game by throwing money at everything, but you still hope that on any given day, the magic of football will prevail, and that anything could happen (and all the other cliches), because it's stil eleven versus eleven in a fair contest. But if you can't even guarantee the opposition being given a fair chance, then what is the point of it all?

Sigh. Well on a more upbeat note, we've enjoyed a very positive response to our first day or two of being up and running. Lots of visitors, and we hope there's lots more to come. If you're visting, Join up or leave us suggestions or comments. We'd love to have people on board and blogging with us, and getting involved in our community. AND, don't forget to enter our contest for you to go blog in Tokyo, it's a great opportunity to get involved with our organisation, and get involved with the world of football.