OK – well, it’s the morning after the night before, and I’ve had time for some reflections on last nights game, with a little help from the papers and some friends.
Firstly, the goal. I think that there were a few possible outcomes of the situation:
- Baros flicks on, goes past Cech and scores
- Baros flicks on, gets taken down by Cech, leading to:
- A penalty – would we score it? Nobody knows
- Cech being carded – red or yellow?
- Garcia shoots, ball gets knocked away, referee ends advantage and gives penalty (as per previous scenario)
- Garcia shoots, ball goes in
In all honesty, I couldn’t tell whether the ball was over or not – the angles weren’t right to be able to tell. However, I am amazed that Cech did not receive any sort of booking for the challenge on Baros.
As for the rest of the game – I can only say that if Mourinho thinks that the best team lost, then he was watching a different game to me. (Although, we’re both biased, yes?) I haven’t seen such a good defensive performance in a long time. And, if my friends are correct, this is very much the way that Porto made their way to last seasons CL final, led by none other than Mourinho, so he can’t complain about that.
Considering the other 3 games we’ve played against Chelsea this season, I reckon we deserved a bit of luck. And despite some interesting refereeing decisions (seemed to me that the only decision that favoured Liverpool was the goal) and 6 minutes of stoppage time, we pulled through with only a couple of scares.
And now some interesting stats – in the first 3 games of the playoffs, we scored 8 goals and conceded 2. In the second 3 games we scored 1 goal, but conceded 0. The final will be a very interesting match indeed. Don’t try and phone me on the 25th…..
mrBen