To answer a prior question, I'd say that the key player for Sacchi's Milan was Marco van Basten -- though one could, perhaps, make a shout for Franco Baresi. Van Basten did win the Ballon d'Or 3 time, after all.
Tren, I'm going to disagree with your rather sweeping statement about how Sacchi's Milan would play -- unless you are in fact old enough to have actually SEEN them play on a regular basis. I am, and I did. And they surely didn't play catenaccio against the best Spanish attacking sides of that era (manita against Madrid and then - even though it was a slightly different team and Capello was the coach 4-0 against Barcelona).
While Barcelona's attack is a sight to behold, the backbone (Van Basten aside) for Milan was its defense which (as Ed has already mentioned) is the best I've seen in a club, ever. I feel that they'd be a challenge even for today's Barcelona.
Being 36 years old i am in fact not only old enough to see them play, but i actually did so regularly. But i somehow feel like a lot of ppl actually havent, and instead have a wrong understanding (at least from my pov) what happened back then.
Now dont get me wrong: Sacchis Milan side revolutionized football in the past 80ies. Look how other teams of that time, even of the european top, played ... sweepers, man marking defenders, bands of 3 static central defenders and all that shit was live at that time. Zonal marking with organized positionining to outnumber the oppositon on every square of the pitch, perfected offside trap and mobile chains of two synchronized rows of 4 in defense and midfield wasnt very common back then. Or actually innovated and put into practice by Sacchi foremost (although there has to go a lot of credit to Valerji Lobanovski and his Dynamo Kiev side who did this a bit earlier even). All that and ofc the addition of 2-3 of the best creative/offensive players in the world helped Milan to totally dominate europe and truly marked an era in the late 80ies/early 90ies.
BUT ... this is 20 years ago. Sacchis innovations are now common knowledge and standard practice. When you do a coaching education you learn about these tactics. And you dont learn that as a player at the age of like 25 when Sacchi arrives at your club anymore, but at the age of 12/13 when you join a half-decent club with a half decent coach nowadays. I didnt make my comparison of Super Nintendo vs wii a few posts above for no reason ... but actually to just show that football tactics is not static but the whole things is very evolutionary, no less than electronic technology (i seemingly failed, but whatever ...).
So dont get blinded by ppl being enthusiastic about historic teams or by sole matches (ye, the plain result of the 94s CL final could make you believe these guys were from space or sth) ... their enthusiasm has a reason, but football evolved over time. Instead think, compare and watch - like the above video footage. Is that actually exciting what can be seen there? Its only a few minutes and the best part (MIlans counter) wasnt shown b/c the camera man decided to show Maradona arguing with the Milan GK ... but was there any pressing involved? Or fast paced runs and quick direct passing? I didnt see anything of that ...
And to finish it (i promise im done then) to stress my argument: does anyone honestly believe that the late 1950s RM team around Puskas and di Stefano would be beating the current Barca team? Id say they were even more fascinating and dominating than the 80/90ies Milan side at their time ...
