I was sitting on a couch watching the match, with Humphrey Bogart on one side and an ex-girlfriend dressed as a nun on the other. What tells me it's actually going to happen is that Bogey warned me that I'd sleep through my alarm this morning...and, lo and behold, I did!
-We come out swinging like we did against Juve in the first leg, and at the 21st minute Stevie G makes it look easy with a header from a Baros cross that puts us up 1-0
-After that we start getting a bit more defensive, but in the 34th minute Riise cracks a miraculous free kick from 30 yards out, somewhat against the run of play. 2-0 Reds.
-A full thirty seconds after the purported end of stoppage time, Drogba makes a long goal much like Garcia's in the Juve game, which Dudek is powerless to stop because Gudjohnssen has just jabbed a finger into his eye and sent him writhing to the ground. The Slovenian ref give Baros a yellow card for complaining. 2-1 at the half.
-The second half sees us go to the crack defensive play that served us so well at Juve and Cheatski, and though the latter retain much of the possession, they're never able to mount a legitimate threat. In the 61st minute, Cisse comes on for Baros, and the ref gives Gerrard a yellow for "looking at him funny."
-As the clock counts closer and closer to 90:00, and the atmosphere at Anfield builds and builds to a point where it could power a small Chinese city for a month, it becomes clear that it's going to take a miracle for Cheatski to put another one past us.
-And, of course, in the 84th minute, they get one. That little ****** Kezman makes a decent run into the corner of the box, until, with no red shirts within ten yards of him, he steps on the ball, flips up into the air, and lands flat on his back. The ref points to the spot and pre-emptively ejects Rafa from the pitch for his oncoming protest. Terry easily puts the ball past Dudek, who dives in the opposite direction. 2-2.
-The crowd goes understandably silent until stoppage time is revealed to be 5 minutes. This mistake can be attributed to the ref not paying attention as a man in a black suit hands him a big brown sack with a dollar sign (well, euro sign I guess) on it. Luis Garcia, who has been somewhat silent to this point, suddenly looks as though he's been struck by lightning and starts playing at about 150%. The entire team is rejuvenated.
-At 94:45, Garcia finds himself coming to the edge of the Cheatski box, all alone against 3 defensemen and Cech. Having no other options, he tries another miracle shot, and Anfield holds its breath as the ball whips toward the top corner, with Cech in no hope of reaching it. A good portion of the crowd has already begun to celebrate, but to their dismay, the ball hits the crossbar and caroms to the edge of the box...
-...directly to the feet of Cisse, who has made so fast a run that none of the blue shirts have noticed him yet. Seeing Cech lying hopeless on the ground to the other side, Cisse, taking no chances, simply dribbles the ball in. It barely touches the back of the net. The ref runs around frantically, trying desperately to find a foul to call, but he suddenly collapses to the ground, dead of what will be diagnosed as a heart attack. In one television shot, however, an astute viewer can clearly make out Abramovich pointing a rather suspicious looking black umbrella at him. 3-2 Reds.





