Well, it’s finally upon us. A competition that started back in August (for some teams) is reaching it’s climax.
Liverpool were fortunate to scrape past Chelsea in the semis. If Robben had started, or if Chelsea had taken the lead at any point, Liverpool would have been finished. But they made it, so fair play to them.
Liverpool’s football hasn’t exactly set the world on fire this season, with a tendancy to pack the midfield. Baros is hit and miss, and doesn’t seem to be up for the big games. They’ve got goals in midfield, which is where I fancy their main threat to come from tonight.
As for Milan, I haven’t seen a great deal of them, but PSV had the better of them over two legs in the semi. Again very fortunate, and I don’t think the two best semi finalists made it through.
Prediction: the dullest final since last year. First to score wins by one goal, or penalties.
I fear you might be completely right with your predictions, Diablo.
I’m a Liverpool supporter, but I haven’t exactly been over the moon at our performance this year. Let’s hope we win, but if we don’t, I’ll be the first to admit that we weren’t great.
If we DO win though, it’ll be interesting to see if we get the chance to defend the title next year.
Liverpool are a different animal in Europe, not sure if it’s the continental style where the game is played at a slower pace but our performances have been excellent in almost all European matches.
I’m pretty confident that we’ll beat Milan, after seeing them unsettled by PSV who played a fast tempo game similar to the Premier League I rekon we’ll start the game at a fast tempo and try to nick a goal early.
Cisse will start on Wednesday so I think general link up play will be better since Baros has been shite since Christmas. Hopefully it’s the last time I see him in a red shirt running down blind alleys.
i saw liverpool play twice this season - once against arsenal and the other was in Europe. Both games they were absolutely brilliant, playing high-tempo passing and looking solid in defence. the spanish guy in midfield, alonso, was so good in that european game it was frightening, and against arsenal Gerrard was on another planet, the most complete performance i’ve seen since Keane vs. Juventus in 1999.
it seems they don’t play like that very often, but they CAN, i’ve seen it, and they could do it against Milan. the biggest danger for liverpool is giving Milan too much respect like United did.
my prediction - liverpool to annihilate them for most of the game, then milan’s class coming through in the end.
I suspect you are right that Cisse will start. Personally I think that’s a shame, as he seems to give the ball away a lot. I thought Baros was far better than Cisse in the second leg against Chelsea, for example. Yes, Cisse can run fast. Yes, he has a powerful shot and has an exciting hairdo. But he also seems to spend a lot of time walking slowly back to the Pool half with that “I can’t believe that just happened” look on his face after he’s just given the ball away again with a poor pass or (far more often) an unsuccessful dribble that he used to get away with in the French league but doesn’t cut it against the big boys.
Yeah Cisse is a hardcore moaner, he’s been that way since his Auxerre days.
I’m not knocking Baros though, he’s a very talented player but he needs someone to play off to be effective such as Jan Koller for the Czech national team. However since Liverpool have been playing with a five man midfield this season we havn’t been able to play to his strengths. We need our strikers to hold the ball up and bring others into the game, Baros’ cavalier attitude and running down blind channels is detrimental to the team.
Speaking of poor attitudes, I hope the story I read about Harry Kewell starting the game is wrong as well. For this game especially, I’d rather see steele over style.
Oh well, regardless of who starts… best of luck to Liverpool tonight!
'Pool 3-0 down at the break, pull it back to even terms, then win the penalty shootout. Can’t stand them, but credit where credit is due. Congratulations!
Yeah yeah, I don’t mind being wrong sometimes, but who could’ve predicted that? And I did get the penalties bit correct
I think they did remarkably well to come back from the dead so to speak. Congratulations to them and their fans, and especially Steven Gerrard, who played out of his skin. My man of the match was Carragher who made numerous life saving blocks in the second half. Well done. Let’s hope they get a chance to defend the title next year.
Sounds like the Welsh team that has a bid into the Champions League qualifying stage has offered to play Liverpool in a one-off game with the winner going through.
I guess from the Welsh team’s perspective the incentives are:
(a) Good publicity for both the team and their league;
(b) Plenty of CA$H, assuming they negotiate a good deal; and
Basically solves the problem for UEFA which was: “Okay, everyone agrees Liverpool should get a shot to defend the title. But which poor little team are we going to kick out at this stage?”
