It’s been a busy week for goalkeepers in the Champions League – but at the other end of the pitch. Following Hans Jorg Butt’s swaggering spot-kick that sent the world’s most expensive goalie the wrong way, another keeper has been in the goals – but this time in good-old fashioned last-minute desperation drama.
Standard Liege were rooted to the bottom of the Champions League group table with seconds remaining in their home encounter with the team just above them, AZ Alkmaar. The Belgians trailed 1-0 and needed a goal to lift themselves above the Dutch champions to secure Europa League qualification with a 3rd-place finish.
One last throw of the dice…. seconds remaining…. a free-kick is swung to the back post and rising to the occasion above everyone else is Standard’s Turkish goalkeeper Sinan Bolat to bullet home a header that Sandor Kocsis and John Toshack would have been proud of.
Cue epic celebrations. We’re not Rafael Benitez is this chuffed to be in the Europa League…. but it’s time to embrace it, Liverpool fans.
Liverpool will almost certainly be featuring on Channel Five this season after their Champions League campaign, that promised fireworks two months ago, went up in smoke in France.
The Reds, who were dubbed one of the competition’s favourites, have picked up just four points from four games and qualification is now out of their hands. With numerous permutations, most of them ugly, the likelihood is that Liverpool need to beat Debrecen and hammer Fiorentina to have any hope of progressing – but if Lyon lose in Florence in three weeks time, Liverpool are out no matter what.
Rafa Benitez, despite missing the likes of Steven Gerrard, Glen Johnson, Albert Riera and Martin Skrtel, still managed to submit a strong outfit for his side’s must-win fixture in Lyon tonight and for the large part, Liverpool looked comfortable and deserved their 1-0 lead courtesy of an 83rd-minute rocket from sub Ryan Babel. But Benitez and his side are being punished left, right and centre for their mistakes at present and it was the Greek defender Kyrgiakos who, rather than stand his ground and muscle his man away, decided to dive in when off balance, allowing Lisandro Lopez to run clear and finish high past Pepe Reina.
The talk of Benitez losing his job is premature; he has no money to spend so neither does an incumbent, and it’s clear the players and most fans are behind him. But at any club, one win in eight matches simply isn’t good enough. No league titles in twenty years simply isn’t good enough.
Today’s mammoth clash between Liverpool and Manchester United doesn’t decide who wins the Premier League this season, but it did speak volumes about the make-up of both sides.
In years gone by, United have had big characters who rolled their sleeves up in times of need; Hughes, Bruce, Pallister, Ince, Keane, Stam – even Beckham. But for all the qualities that this current-day squad possess, a combative, body-on-the-line spirit isn’t one of them.
Too many times in recent memory have this United side surrendered a crucial match with a whimper, with the Champions League Final in Rome being the most inglorious example. Today, Liverpool didn’t have to be particularly impressive in order to celebrate their third successive win over United but they applied the fundamentals, scrapped for every ball, and fought as though their lives depended on it. In circumstances like that, you expect the opposition to match that endeavour but it never happened and the champions meekly raised the white flag and conceded three points to their most bitter rivals.
The one-paced United midfield were never gifted a second with Lucas and Mascherano in their faces and first to every loose ball, supported by the trio of willing hustlers in Kuyt, Benayoun and Aurelio. Scholes and Carrick surely isn’t the answer for Ferguson’s side in big games; technically astute they may be but as a pairing they lack pace, mobility and physical presence. What the great Scot would have given for Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves. Sir Alex has a vast array of options in that middle third but, when it comes to the grand occasion, is it a case of numerous tradesmen and masters of none?
That’s for Fergie to seriously ponder. But nevertheless, take nothing away from Liverpool; when the chips are down, they seem to be in total contrast to United. Four straight defeats and yet you could sense even before kick-off that they were going to give this everything they had and more often than not, that’s enough.
Liverpool fans love the number five. It’s what sets them apart. It’s what makes them believe. Five times they’ve lifted the European Cup and they never let anyone forget it.
But now, they’re facing an altogether different number five. An unprecedented fifth successive defeat, against their arch rivals Manchester United on Sunday, would leave a season that was so hyped, so bullish, so promising…. in tatters. In October. Five has become a hugely frightening number indeed.
And it might not stop there. This morning Rafa Benitez’s side lick their wounds that could easily be reopened time and time again in the next fortnight as, after the champions come to town, there are two more crunch clashes with Arsenal and Lyon again.
Liverpool’s 2-1 home defeat to the French league leaders has left them with a uphill battle to qualify for the Champions League second round; failure to do so would be a catastrophic malfunction, both on the pitch and in the boardroom.
What has happened to the swash-buckling, steam-rollering, free-scoring, never-say-die Liverpool from last spring? Jamie Carragher cut the most forlorn figure you are ever likely to see as the final whistle went last night; close to tears in his post-match interview. This is Jamie Carragher – the embodiment of all that it stands for to be a Liverpool player – and there he was looking like a totally broken man.
These are worrying times for Rafael Benitez. Manchester United will head to Merseyside on Sunday smelling blood, envisioning a huge Street Fighteresque ‘Finish Him’ mirage above the Anfield pitch – and if they head back down the East Lancs with a ten-point lead over Liverpool, Benitez – and his team’s 2009/10 season – may well indeed be finished.
