Liverpool FC Forum

by **JBG** » Fri May 27, 2005 9:33 am

A triumph of passion but little else...

Liverpool's victory proves the Premiership is the best league in Europe. Or does it?

Richard Williams
Friday May 27, 2005
The Guardian

One day, perhaps, an English club will dominate the Champions League with football that sets new standards in technique and tactics. Until then we should be happy to take what we can get from the eternal ability of guts and passion to triumph, on a given night, over extreme sophistication and the assumption of superiority. Happy, in fact, with what Liverpool gave us on Wednesday night in Istanbul, in a match that will forever enjoy a place among the tournament's most dramatic finals.

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Like Manchester United in 1999, Liverpool started the evening handicapped by a poor choice of formation. Where Alex Ferguson had dragged David Beckham and Ryan Giggs out of position, giving his team a narrow, congested and fumbling midfield, Rafael Benítez astonishingly decided to start this match, so vital to the club, with Harry Kewell, a player with a heart the size of a diamond ear-stud, just behind Milan Baros. To make room for the Australian dilettante he left out Dietmar Hamann, a player of enormous experience at this level, thereby removing the shield from his back four.
Ferguson was saved from the consequences of his own misjudgment by his substitutes, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who produced the injury-time goals that consigned a rather more deserving Bayern Munich team to purgatory. United's win had been the result of nothing more than dogged persistence, but its timing banished all memories of the inadequate football that preceded the decisive goals. At least Liverpool's bad spell in the Ataturk Stadium lasted only 45 minutes.

Benítez's selection problems may have started almost a year ago, when he allowed Michael Owen to accept an offer from Real Madrid. From what we have seen of the English striker's performances during his limited opportunities in Spain, and from what we saw of Liverpool's current attackers on Wednesday, the turnaround against Milan might have been accomplished without the need for extra-time or a penalty shoot-out.

At least Kewell's early and unlamented injury gave Liverpool's manager a chance to start putting things right. Vladimir Smicer, coming on to make his last appearance for the club, improved their shape, but it was not until half-time that Benítez bit the bullet and sent on Hamann to occupy the space in which Kaka had been making merry in the first period.

For 45 minutes Milan's superiority had been embarrassing. Kaka, Andriy Shevchenko, Andrea Pirlo and Clarence Seedorf moved the ball around with a suaveness that made Liverpool look like yokels. These, it seemed, were players fit to join Gianni Rivera, Marco van Basten and Dejan Savicevic in the club's pantheon of European Cup heroes. One goal, scored by Paolo Maldini after 50 seconds, appeared to have secured the title for a team with such a vastly experienced defence. Two more, both from Hernán Crespo, merely gift-wrapped the trophy. Or so everyone thought.

But Benítez sent Steven Gerrard and his team-mates out to play for their pride in the second half, enabling us to learn a new lesson in what that commodity can achieve. Gerrard's headed goal turned the momentum around, and from that moment Milan were struggling to stave off defeat. Two more goals came as the Italian side progressively collapsed, and Jerzy Dudek's heart-stopping double save from Shevchenko near the end mimicked the last-minute agility with which Iker Casillas preserved Real Madrid's victory against Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow three years ago.

And nothing exposed the extent of Liverpool's success so much as Milan's abject performance in the shoot-out. All their resolve had ebbed away as Serginho, Pirlo and Shevchenko failed with efforts that would have disgraced the similar endgame in the Millennium stadium four days earlier. Dudek's antics were displeasing to the eye of the purist, and some of them fell outside the present laws, but they certainly seemed to help in demolishing what remained of the Milanese equilibrium.

So there can no argument. The trophy that will now take up permanent residence at Anfield is there by right. In beating the new champions of England, the new and outgoing champions of Italy, Liverpool ensured their entitlement to be known for the next year as the champions of Europe. The fact that they finished fifth in this season's Premiership, 30-odd points behind Chelsea, is of no consequence and would be of even less if the tournament they won on Wednesday carried a more appropriate title, such as the European Super League.

When a commentator mentioned that Crespo was in line for "the first hat-trick in the history of the Champions League", the immediate response was to shout, "What about Di Stefano and Puskas?" But he was right. This is not the competition those majestic players won so gloriously in the 50s. It is, however, just as hard to win, and Benítez must be saluted for negotiating his team to victory while not quite being able to work out how to win at Selhurst Park or the Riverside.

Not much was said on Wednesday about Gérard Houllier, although it should be remembered that he assembled the collection of players his successor sent out in Istanbul, with the exceptions of the influential Xabi Alonso and the dynamic Luis García. No disrespect to the Spanish coach is contained in the suggestion that no one can say how far Houllier might have taken the club along the same path had a ruptured aorta not interrupted his progress.

Now, of course, there will be a clamour to allow Liverpool to defend the title, an argument made with the support of emotion and tradition, and not much else. The present regulations state every team must qualify through their performance in their domestic leagues, which must have seemed fairer to those who drew up the amendment. It may still seem so to those whose personal loyalties are not engaged in this argument, although the governing body has already undermined its own principle by granting an automatic entry to the winners of the Uefa Cup in order to raise the status of that lacklustre competition. And presumably Liverpool had read the rules before they entered the tournament.

Brazil, after all, are taking part in qualifying matches for the 2006 World Cup, after a similar change to the format. As five-times holders of the title and the current champions, they seem content to comply with regulations that put them on the same footing, and potentially in the same jeopardy, as everyone else.

Times change, and rules change with them. In the early days of Wimbledon, for example, the men's singles champion was given a bye to the next year's final; no one would suggest a return to that arrangement today.

Uefa's committee men may stick to their guns, or they may give in. Whatever the decision, it is unlikely to do much for the standing of a bunch of men who, with a continent's stadiums to choose from, ordered that this year's final be played in a facility that was clearly unready for the occasion. Not that Liverpool's euphoric hordes, who howled their team to victory against Chelsea at Anfield and got their reward in Istanbul, will be bothered about that now.

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A triumph of passion but little else... - Richard williams (found by andy_q)

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