(on penalties)  

MANCHESTER (England), May 29: AC Milan were crowned champions of Europe for the sixth time in their history when they beat Italian rivals Juventus 3-2 on penalties after a deeply disappointing Champions League final ended goalless after extra time on Wednesday.

Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko scored the decisive penalty in the shootout at the same end as he had had a goal disallowed for a marginal offside decision in the eighth minute at Old Trafford.

Had that goal counted it would probably have stopped the match, which started brightly, developing into a dour battle of midfield attrition.

There were few scoring chances in the worst European Cup final since Red Star Belgrade beat Olympique Marseille on penalties after a goalless draw in 1991.

The pressure told on the penalty takers with David Trezeguet, Marcelo Zalayeta and Paolo Montero all missing for Juve while Clarence Seedorf and Kakha Kaladze missed for Milan.

The shootout score remained unchanged at 1-1 as four successive penalties were missed before Alessandro Nesta put Milan 2-1 ahead with his side’s fourth kick. Juve skipper Alessandro Del Piero, who had done little right in the match, made it 2-2 when he wrong-footed Milan keeper Dida.

But Shevchenko kept his nerve to fire past Gianluigi Buffon and win the first all-Italian European Cup final for Milan.

Paolo Maldini led his victorious team on to the victory rostrum and collected the European Cup — just as his father Cesare had done for Milan in 1963 when they won the trophy for the first time with a 2-1 win over Benfica at Wembley.

Milan were the more impressive side in the first half and were unlucky to be denied a goal when a good build-up ended with Shevchenko powering home a well-struck shot that took a slight deflection past Buffon but was disallowed because Rui Costa was offside.

Milan, though, dominated for most of the opening half and went close again after 17 minutes when Filippo Inzaghi forced Buffon into a vital save from a diving header.

But while Milan looked dangerous almost every time they attacked, Juventus were restricted to a couple of speculative goal attempts before the break, the best of which Del Piero sent high and wide.

Juventus, the newly-crowned Italian champions, were never able to assert themselves in the opening period. As expected, they missed the driving force of suspended Pavel Nedved in midfield, and his stand-in Mauro Camoranesi was too often on the fringes of play.

Coach Marcello Lippi replaced him with Antonio Conte at the start of the second half and the substitute immediately sparked some life into Juve — heading a Del Piero cross against the bar in the 47th minute.

But after that there was relatively little goalmouth action, or scoring chances as the second half wore on.

Milan were unable to maintain their early superiority, but even when Lippi replaced midfielder Edgar Davids for forward Marcelo Zalayeta after 66 minutes, Juve still created little of note with target man David Trezeguet hardly making a contribution.

Milan had the last real chance of normal time when Inzaghi headed a powerful cross from substitute Serginho over the bar after 76 minutes and after that extra-time, which passed without any goal attempts from either side, was inevitable.

Penalties soon became inevitable too — but Milan probably deserved to win for their first half superiority at least.—Reuters