Watching Liverpool beat AC Milan in the European Cup Final - Its never too late to recover
I started watching football again with my dad for want of something better to do up in Liverpool and as that seemed to be the culture of the house I thought I might as well join in and enjoy it especially as my dad is knowledgeable and intelligent about football so I could have the benefit of an informed perspective.
So, I watched Everton beat Manchester United. I watched Liverpool beat Chelsea. And I watched AC Milan beat Eindhoven to reach the final. And I loved it, understood it in a way I couldn’t first time around, rediscovered the buzz of Liverpool and felt connected to the city I’d returned to after 25 years.
And last night I sat down to watch Liverpool play AC Milan with enough denial to believe they might just win – that they could capitalise on their underdog status – like Rocky.
Well, I was disabused of that notion within 50 seconds of the kick-off when AC Milan gained possession from a simple Liverpool error – and scored immediately. It was so shocking I physically recoiled from the TV as though from a hard punch. All my previous hopes and beliefs seemed naïve or delusory confronted with this grim reality.
Suddenly they were not only AC Milan but they were a goal ahead. Not even the most optimistic scenario contained the possibility of Liverpool coming good from behind. The best case scenario had a goal for Liverpool then an arduous defensive slog, or penalties and a great deal of luck.
With a deepening sense of gloom I watched as Milan began to really perform – Liverpool left sprawling shell-shocked in their wake. Incapable of tackling them without incurring a foul, often incapable of catching them – and incapable of holding onto the ball on the rare and brief occasions when they ended up with it. 17 minutes of this painful spectacle then Milan scored again. The Liverpool defence looked totally outclassed.
“Ok this feels bad but maybe…” no, it was silly to imagine this was anything other than total unchallengeable superiority by the Italians. When they scored minutes later for the third time the only possible future was that they scored more – faster. A final score line of 7 nil looked highly probable – with possibly a sending off to seal Liverpool’s shame.
I didn’t want to watch anymore. Felt bad. Numb. I wandered from the telly at half time and tried to check my e mails, look at porn, anything to ease the pain; but the computer wouldn’t work. Our bedroom was being decorated so the machine stood naked before curtainless windows – and the connections had been disturbed. Reluctantly, grudgingly, I descended the stairs and returned to the grim reality of the second half – a minute in.
At first I was held by the manager’s changes, pulled out of my depression by curiosity. Suddenly some possession, and then to my utter disbelief Gerrard scored. Bang! Off the head into the back of the net from 20 yards out, as good as anything the Italians had done. And everything changed for me, for them, for the world. The next 7 minutes is a bit of a blur but it confirmed once more the delusion of certainty and the wisdom of taking each moment as it comes. Gerrard’s goal gave me the grim redemptive sense of dying but fighting back – a restoration of pride. But Smicer’s gave me hope. The third movement as Gerrard went down in the box seemed inevitable – and suddenly the aristocrats of football didn’t seem so self-possessed anymore. Even the saved penalty hammered in on the rebound seemed only to confirm that the juice was now flowing the other way.
And the words of wisdom from the Eindhoven manager (AC Milan’s last opponent) came flooding back with new meaning. “We shook their defence, they’re vulnerable. sure they can counter quickly but they don’t like it when you go to them. They like to be in control and when we played them there were moments when they were out of control”. There was a distinct whiff of hubris in the air.
As the roar from the estimated 30,000 Liverpool fans grew in volume Liverpool metamorphosed into a new incarnation – total command. More chances came – and the crowd seemed like an entity channelling energy to the players on the field, and suddenly, impossibly, the Liverpool players seemed to outnumber the Italians wherever they were on the field. Even the yellow cards for Carragher and the increasingly reactive Baros failed to restrict this new Liverpool. By full-time the sense was both sides were relieved, though it was the Italians who where shell-shocked now and their malady seemed deeper, somehow more pernicious than that which gripped Liverpool in the first half.
Extra time was a blur culminating in an awful flurry on the Liverpool goal line when Dudek made an instinctive second save (among half a dozen others) from Shevchenko that defied all explanation (like the rest of this game). I recall images of Gerrard tackling successfully again and again on the far side of the Liverpool penalty area while Carragher did the same in front of goal and substitute Cisse’s runs up front reduced the pressure. The end of the second period of extra time and I was absolutely locked in - knew psychologically Liverpool had the momentum and the physical capability to beat them on penalties.
When Serginho missed - skied it - for AC Milan I knew it was Liverpool’s night (it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. He was one of the substitutes and when he first came on he complained bitterly he’d had his shirt held which was the exact opposite of what happened). It was as though Dudek's windmilling semaphore on the goal-line had created a psychic barrier that drove the ball heavenwards.
That miss fed the sense of confidence and the privileged place Liverpool now held as the underdogs - it was like we were coming from the gutter and the world no longer held fear for us - especially when Liverpool scored (Hamann). Then, impossibly, Milan missed again. A stuttering run from Pirio succeeded in outfoxing only the kicker as Dudek, full stretch, read it, got it and fended it off to the right.
Cisse scored. Tomasson or some such scored for Milan. Riise missed for Liverpool. Kaka scored for Milan. Smicer scored for Liverpool. Then came footballer of the year Shevchenko. He looked uncharacteristically worried as he walked up to take the ball from Dudek and received full eye-contact. He ran up and kicked, Dudek somehow got it right, got a hand to it. Shevchenko ran forward and put the rebound in the goal in frustration but, too late, the penalty had been saved.
Impossibly, Shevchenko had missed along with all the other impossibles and improbables of this enchanted night by the Bosphorus which might as well have been the Mersey. So there you have it, we’d won. Nobody expected it – but it happened. Now anything’s possible – for all of us.
So, I watched Everton beat Manchester United. I watched Liverpool beat Chelsea. And I watched AC Milan beat Eindhoven to reach the final. And I loved it, understood it in a way I couldn’t first time around, rediscovered the buzz of Liverpool and felt connected to the city I’d returned to after 25 years.
And last night I sat down to watch Liverpool play AC Milan with enough denial to believe they might just win – that they could capitalise on their underdog status – like Rocky.
Well, I was disabused of that notion within 50 seconds of the kick-off when AC Milan gained possession from a simple Liverpool error – and scored immediately. It was so shocking I physically recoiled from the TV as though from a hard punch. All my previous hopes and beliefs seemed naïve or delusory confronted with this grim reality.
Suddenly they were not only AC Milan but they were a goal ahead. Not even the most optimistic scenario contained the possibility of Liverpool coming good from behind. The best case scenario had a goal for Liverpool then an arduous defensive slog, or penalties and a great deal of luck.
With a deepening sense of gloom I watched as Milan began to really perform – Liverpool left sprawling shell-shocked in their wake. Incapable of tackling them without incurring a foul, often incapable of catching them – and incapable of holding onto the ball on the rare and brief occasions when they ended up with it. 17 minutes of this painful spectacle then Milan scored again. The Liverpool defence looked totally outclassed.
“Ok this feels bad but maybe…” no, it was silly to imagine this was anything other than total unchallengeable superiority by the Italians. When they scored minutes later for the third time the only possible future was that they scored more – faster. A final score line of 7 nil looked highly probable – with possibly a sending off to seal Liverpool’s shame.
I didn’t want to watch anymore. Felt bad. Numb. I wandered from the telly at half time and tried to check my e mails, look at porn, anything to ease the pain; but the computer wouldn’t work. Our bedroom was being decorated so the machine stood naked before curtainless windows – and the connections had been disturbed. Reluctantly, grudgingly, I descended the stairs and returned to the grim reality of the second half – a minute in.
At first I was held by the manager’s changes, pulled out of my depression by curiosity. Suddenly some possession, and then to my utter disbelief Gerrard scored. Bang! Off the head into the back of the net from 20 yards out, as good as anything the Italians had done. And everything changed for me, for them, for the world. The next 7 minutes is a bit of a blur but it confirmed once more the delusion of certainty and the wisdom of taking each moment as it comes. Gerrard’s goal gave me the grim redemptive sense of dying but fighting back – a restoration of pride. But Smicer’s gave me hope. The third movement as Gerrard went down in the box seemed inevitable – and suddenly the aristocrats of football didn’t seem so self-possessed anymore. Even the saved penalty hammered in on the rebound seemed only to confirm that the juice was now flowing the other way.
And the words of wisdom from the Eindhoven manager (AC Milan’s last opponent) came flooding back with new meaning. “We shook their defence, they’re vulnerable. sure they can counter quickly but they don’t like it when you go to them. They like to be in control and when we played them there were moments when they were out of control”. There was a distinct whiff of hubris in the air.
As the roar from the estimated 30,000 Liverpool fans grew in volume Liverpool metamorphosed into a new incarnation – total command. More chances came – and the crowd seemed like an entity channelling energy to the players on the field, and suddenly, impossibly, the Liverpool players seemed to outnumber the Italians wherever they were on the field. Even the yellow cards for Carragher and the increasingly reactive Baros failed to restrict this new Liverpool. By full-time the sense was both sides were relieved, though it was the Italians who where shell-shocked now and their malady seemed deeper, somehow more pernicious than that which gripped Liverpool in the first half.
Extra time was a blur culminating in an awful flurry on the Liverpool goal line when Dudek made an instinctive second save (among half a dozen others) from Shevchenko that defied all explanation (like the rest of this game). I recall images of Gerrard tackling successfully again and again on the far side of the Liverpool penalty area while Carragher did the same in front of goal and substitute Cisse’s runs up front reduced the pressure. The end of the second period of extra time and I was absolutely locked in - knew psychologically Liverpool had the momentum and the physical capability to beat them on penalties.
When Serginho missed - skied it - for AC Milan I knew it was Liverpool’s night (it couldn’t have happened to a nicer fellow. He was one of the substitutes and when he first came on he complained bitterly he’d had his shirt held which was the exact opposite of what happened). It was as though Dudek's windmilling semaphore on the goal-line had created a psychic barrier that drove the ball heavenwards.
That miss fed the sense of confidence and the privileged place Liverpool now held as the underdogs - it was like we were coming from the gutter and the world no longer held fear for us - especially when Liverpool scored (Hamann). Then, impossibly, Milan missed again. A stuttering run from Pirio succeeded in outfoxing only the kicker as Dudek, full stretch, read it, got it and fended it off to the right.
Cisse scored. Tomasson or some such scored for Milan. Riise missed for Liverpool. Kaka scored for Milan. Smicer scored for Liverpool. Then came footballer of the year Shevchenko. He looked uncharacteristically worried as he walked up to take the ball from Dudek and received full eye-contact. He ran up and kicked, Dudek somehow got it right, got a hand to it. Shevchenko ran forward and put the rebound in the goal in frustration but, too late, the penalty had been saved.
Impossibly, Shevchenko had missed along with all the other impossibles and improbables of this enchanted night by the Bosphorus which might as well have been the Mersey. So there you have it, we’d won. Nobody expected it – but it happened. Now anything’s possible – for all of us.
posted by Nick Mercer at
9:37 am
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