UEFA Champions League

[LAL]

Liverpool F.C

Erratic and riddled with injuries to key players all season, they came into this final with odds heavily stacked against them.

Three nothing down at the halfway mark, they seemed like goners then. But, they struck back within a 7 minute period after the break to tie the game and bring it to extra time and the goal/penalty kicks. Yeh, penalty kicks are never a neat way to settle a soccer game, but that's how the game is.

After 21 years, the trophy returns to Merseyside. Kudos also to their great Spanish coach, Rafael Benitez.

Downside is, they may not be able to even compete in this competition next year since they didn't qualify from their domestic league.

But for now, the partying goes on...

[Alexander Hawkins]

Liverpool F.C 

Erratic and riddled with injuries to key players all season, they came into this final with odds heavily stacked against them.

Three nothing down at the halfway mark, they seemed like goners then. But, they struck back within a 7 minute period after the break to tie the game and bring it to extra time and the goal/penalty kicks. Yeh, penalty kicks are never a neat way to settle a soccer game, but that's how the game is.

After 21 years, the trophy returns to Merseyside. Kudos also to their great Spanish coach, Rafael Benitez.

Downside is, they may not be able to even compete in this competition next year since they didn't qualify from their domestic league.

But for now, the partying goes on...      

←

Don't get me started on Liverpool.

Admittedly, a good comeback, but...Liverpool are the WORST side, surely, ever to have won this. Their domestic season has been on the poor side of woeful. They play only slightly less dull football under Benitez than Houllier. They NEVER deserved to beat Chelsea in the semis. Less Gerrard and Carragher, this team would be nothing (witness the first half when the pair of them seemingly forgot to turn up).

And I really resent the 'divine right' theory of Liverpool, which is that somehow, because a club with an impressive history, they deserve to win big things these days.

I suspest next season, they'll slip even further towards the mid-table mediocrity which they so ably demostrated flashes of this term. And they probably go unceremoniously out of the UEFA Cup to some unknowns...

Bitter, me?

[Alexander Hawkins]

Liverpool F.C  

Erratic and riddled with injuries to key players all season, they came into this final with odds heavily stacked against them.

Three nothing down at the halfway mark, they seemed like goners then. But, they struck back within a 7 minute period after the break to tie the game and bring it to extra time and the goal/penalty kicks. Yeh, penalty kicks are never a neat way to settle a soccer game, but that's how the game is.

After 21 years, the trophy returns to Merseyside. Kudos also to their great Spanish coach, Rafael Benitez.

Downside is, they may not be able to even compete in this competition next year since they didn't qualify from their domestic league.

But for now, the partying goes on...      

←

Don't get me started on Liverpool.

Admittedly, a good comeback, but...Liverpool are the WORST side, surely, ever to have won this. Their domestic season has been on the poor side of woeful. They play only slightly less dull football under Benitez than Houllier. They NEVER deserved to beat Chelsea in the semis. Less Gerrard and Carragher, this team would be nothing (witness the first half when the pair of them seemingly forgot to turn up).

And I really resent the 'divine right' theory of Liverpool, which is that somehow, because a club with an impressive history, they deserve to win big things these days.

I suspest next season, they'll slip even further towards the mid-table mediocrity which they so ably demostrated flashes of this term. And they probably go unceremoniously out of the UEFA Cup to some unknowns...

Bitter, me?

←

Another reply, with an apology to LAL - this is not a personal rant! I am just a very bitter Chelsea fan!!!

Liverpool supporters will be on cloud nine today - that's one thing which even their most avid detractors can't deny!

[B. Goren.]

It was one of the two most dramatic finals I can recall. The other one is of course 1999 final with Manchester United.