Opposition's disarray only comfort to Berlusconi after team's loss
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-26 20:53

Voters dealt his party stinging defeats this spring and his squabbling political partners forced him to resign briefly. Now, Premier Silvio Berlusconi's beloved soccer team has lost the final of Europe's biggest club tournament while he was watching from VIP seats.

Italy's richest man, who led the nation's longest-lasting government in decades, is beginning to look like a loser these days.

His one consolation? The disarray of the opposition center-left, which is hoping to defeat the conservative premier in general elections next year.

On Thursday, opposition leaders were busy trading barbs over who was to blame for the drastic erosion of their united front against Berlusconi _ owner of AC Milan, which lost 6-5 to Liverpool after squandering a 3-0 lead in the Champions League final.

Romano Prodi threw his center-left coalition into crisis on Wednesday when he announced he would head a single party in elections next year rather than running under the banner of the Olive Tree coalition.

That was in response to an announcement Friday by the Margherita party, headed by former Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli, not to run under the Olive Tree banner but on its own.

``I decided to make a decision that reinforces, underlines the need to unite Olive Tree because we need, if we want to change the country, a strong and unified reference point,'' Prodi said Thursday in a bid to defend his move.

Italy's center-left had appeared to unite under Prodi in recent months after years of bickering, and the Union coalition Prodi heads had fared well in recent elections.

Berlusconi was in a philosophical mood in Istanbul Wednesday night after his team's stunning loss.

``Soccer is like politics,'' Berlusconi said. ``You think you've won and instead, no.''

But the depth of his attachment to AC Milan emerged in a comment he reportedly made just before striker Andriy Shevchenko blew a final kick in the penalty shootout, sealing Milan's loss.

``I don't want to look,'' he was quoted as saying by Rome daily La Repubblica.

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