It was Kaka who was quoted in the Argentinian press as saying the Intercontinental Cup is the most prestigious title in world football; Kaka who lamented the absence of his friend Juan Román Riquelme, saying it was "worse for the show but better for Milan"; Kaka who praised Boca prior to the match; and Kaka who yesterday equalled Marco van Basten's 'treble', winning the club world title in the same years as the Champions League and the Ballon d'Or.
The Intercontinental Cup is coveted by South American clubs, players and fans alike, ever since the days when it was played over two legs, home and away. In the late 60s and early 70s Estudiantes de la Plata put Argentina on the map by winning the Libertadores and facing European Champions on a regular basis. Then, in the late 70s, a couple of European clubs - including Liverpool in 1978 - refused to travel south to contest the world championship. This signalled the demise of the Intercontinental Cup as it was then known, and though Toyota began sponsoring it in 1980 and moved it to Japan, British clubs have, for some reason, never considered the world club title to be important. By contrast, I think that perhaps in the rest of Europe, winning it is regarded as a significant achievement.
Boca Juniors were, until yesterday, together with Milan, the club who had won it most often - three times. Indeed, in 2003 Boca beat Milan on penalties and the sense that this year's clash was a chance for the Italian giants to avenge that defeat was the main theme of the week in the Argentinian press.
Now called the Club World Cup, the finalists qualify by beating representatives of other confederations, though in Argentina the attention devoted to the likes of Etoile du Sahel and Urawa Red Diamonds was considerably less than that focused on Boca and Milan. "WHO?" was the only half-joking headline prior to Boca's match with Tunisia's Etoile du Sahel last week. This was uttered not so much with disrespect than with genuine ignorance.
After the match, which Boca won 1-0, Martin Palermo admitted that these days "there is no such thing as an easy match", and credited Etoile with strength and the defensive ability to always seek out Boca's mistakes. "We had possession and control," he said, which reminded me of an observation once made by Ruud Gullit: possession is not the same as control.
The Argentinian press's attention to detail was not spared when it came to Milan, however; the history, the big names to grace the pitch, Argentina's historic loss to Cameroon in the 1990 World Cup in the San Siro and, of course, comparisons with the more recent 2003 encounter.
Milan won the match 4-2. As if to back up Gullit's observation, post-match statistics indicated that Boca had had as much possession as Milan.
With the match over, attention quickly turned to the question of Boca's next manager. Miguel Angel Russo almost certainly took his last training session as manager on Saturday in Japan. Speculation is rife that Carlos Bianchi may be invited back to the helm.
Much in the way that Milan facilitated Silvio Berlusconi's political career in a context wider than football, Boca's erstwhile chairman, Mauricio Macri, recently gave up his club seat to at last fulfill his ambition of becoming a major player in politics proper - he was sworn in as governor of Buenos Aires one week ago. Pedro Pompilio, now in charge of the club, will return from Japan to face the reconstruction of a side that, notwithstanding the $4m earned from making it to yesterday's final, has not enjoyed a particularly good season.
The vast amount of coverage devoted to the Club World Cup in the local press was surpassed only by River Plate's ultimately successful attempt to appoint Diego Simeone as manager, luring him away from Estudiantes de la Plata, where, this time last year, he brought back a flavour of the glory days of the 60s, by guiding the club to the domestic title.
Estudiantes will play the Libertadores without their inspirational manager, who arrived at River saying he hopes to train and manage "in the European way". In the meantime, Boca have to find the right man to remain competitive - locally and internationally - and another name being touted is Diego Cagna. Having only recently ended his playing days, which took him to Boca and Villarreal, Cagna has just taken Tigre, a small club who had not been in the first division for 28 years, to second place in the Apertura championship in his first season as a manager.
