[lfc-news] Liverpool traditionalists bridge gap - Telegraph

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Daily Telegraph, 28 April 2005
Liverpool traditionalists bridge gap
By Paul Hayward

Moments before this private English Euro-tussle commenced a contorted
face appeared round the corner of the press enclosure. "Eighteen
championships and four European Cups!" the Liverpool supporter howled at
no one in particular. It was a statement of fact, a taunt and a plea for
deliverance from a club who need victory in Europe far more than the
Premiership champions elect.

If this semi-final pits money against tradition, as many Liverpool fans
allege, it was tradition that had desperation in its face, a raucous
yearning in its voice and a certain frisson down on the pitch, where the
gap seemed much narrower than the 31 points that separate Chelsea and
their guests in domestic competition.

By rights that chasm ought to have rendered this North-South contest a
mismatch, but Liverpool have European experience in their genes, Rafael
Benitez to mastermind their continental campaign and some fine
individuals who need five or six more top-class squad-mates to start
threatening the Premiership's big three once more. Symbolic proof was
provided in the first half when Jamie Carragher, Anfield's king of
self-improvement, upended and dispossessed John Terry, recently voted
the PFA's Player of the Year.

Chelsea's season could already be defined as successful. Liverpool's
hung over a cliff. Sure, the red flag was fluttering after their
improbable triumph over Juventus, but there was still the possibility
that these once mighty reds would finish Benitez's first campaign as
beaten Carling Cup finalists, beaten Champions League semi-finalists and
the fifth or even sixth best team in the Premiership. How would the 0-0
draw in Turin register then in the Kop's affections? Pretty low, is the
guess.

For that reason, last night's first leg was freighted with greater
significance for Liverpool's followers, who serenaded Benitez as he
walked along the crimson rows, signing autographs, before the battle
began. Chelsea wanted to win this tie. Liverpool needed to. Their fans
banged, crashed, roared and yelped their way through a fierce and
frenetic encounter. A proportion of them, it has to be said, were
obnoxious throughout.

Liverpool's excellent Euro-form has been a blessing and a kind of
embarrassment. The victories over Bayer Leverkusen and Juventus stirred
memories of European domination. But they also forced the club to
confront the anomaly of their poor domestic form, which has featured 13
Premiership defeats - 10 of them away from home. For now, the fans can
console themselves with the thought that Benitez and his Spanish imports
have yet to adjust to the crash-bang-wallop of the English leagues, and
that next season they will be better equipped to achieve at home what
they have abroad.

On the evidence of the opening period, Liverpool were at least on a par
with Jose Mourinho's Chelsea, who lacked the pace and width of Damien
Duff and Arjen Robben to complement the usual industry of Frank Lampard
and Claude Makelele. How the Liverpool dressing room must have convulsed
when the team-sheets came through, showing Robben among the subs and
Duff not even on the bench. The game was 58 minutes old before Mourinho
dared let loose his nimble Dutch winger.

If you could have bought one team at half-time, it might even have been
Liverpool, even though Xabi Alonso's normally precise passing was
off-target, Steven Gerrard was being throttled by Makelele and Milan
Baros seemed insufficiently muscular to be able to operate as a lone
striker against Terry and the superb Ricardo Carvalho. Without Djibril
Cisse, who is working his way back from a horrific leg break, and
Fernando Morientes, who is cup-tied, Liverpool's good approach play
tended to bounce off a blue defensive wall.

Giving up on Baros, who had seen a neat header pushed round a post by
Petr Cech, Benitez replaced his bustling Czech with Cisse shortly after
the hour. The French striker's first contribution was a scorching drive
over Cech's crossbar, which seemed to give Liverpool renewed encouragement.

For much of this game Liverpool were, in Europe, everything they have
failed to be at home: resilient, dynamic, hard to beat. The real heroes
were their defenders. The obvious objective was not to concede an
avalanche of goals in Roman Abramovich's lair, and then unleash the
Anfield roar on Tuesday night. Ram-raiding the opposition worked against
Leverkusen and Juventus, but will it work a third time against opponents
who have already beaten them twice in the Premiership and again in the
final of the Carling Cup? It depends which Liverpool XI turn up: the one
who lost at Crystal Palace at the weekend, or the tougher, smarter side
who made that 31-point deficit vanish on a steamy night in west London.
A late, serious blow was the booking for Alonso which rules him out of
the return leg.

Still, a 0-0 draw had a paralysing effect on the home crowd, who have
seen Barcelona and Bayern Munich blown away this season on the same
London turf. The result tips the balance Liverpool's way, even if
Chelsea's superiority, technically, is 31 points, and Benitez's men may
yet finish one place lower in the Premiership than they did last year.

That mystery defies comprehension. One game between Liverpool and the
final. Ninety minutes. An epic night up ahead.

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