Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Liverpool - Chelsea (second leg)

Now that's more like a match! The evenness with which these two teams played each other over the course of two legs was astounding.

Chelsea's Petr Cech, best goalkeeper in the world? Quite possibly--but not tonight, when Liverpool's Pepe Reina blocked two out of three penalty shots. Except for the last ten minutes of regulation time (when Chelsea have recently been notorious for scoring), I felt that the longer the game went on, the more Liverpool had momentum. The commentators noted that Chelsea looked fresher, physically, than Liverpool come extra time. But both teams were creating chances back-and-forth so I figured the Anfield adrenalin made up for any fitness gap. Robbie Fowler, of course, got a huge ovation at the Liverpool-friendly bar where I caught the very end of the game after work.

I shed no tears at all for Chelsea, but I do have to say that (if Milan make it to the final) it's too bad we couldn't see the Drogba/Shevchenko showdown against the Rossoneri or that (if Manchester make it to the final) that Chelsea and Man Utd couldn't have continued to fight things out on three different fronts for a little while longer.

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