Ha ha! You would have loved a scene I witnessed a couple days ago on tv, a girl (tv presenter of a funny italian tv show on soccer) went to Liverpool to try and convince some supporters to change their Liverpool's scarf/shirts with milan's ones. She approached a fruit/vegetable stand (at least I think it was...) and asked the owner his opinion on the future match, and he gave her a print of Gerrard's face with "CUNT" written on the forehead, she didn't understand a word and kept showing the print to the camera laughing saying "what does cunt mean?" for like 3 minutes, with the stand owner laughing like crazy in the background.

It'll be Chelsea's turn to be lifting that trophy next year :D

Wow, it's Maldini's 5th time on a uefa championship team...and he's 39.

Yeah yeah, keep dreaming.

You sadistic bastard. Now brace yourselves, for I am about to contradict myself somewhere here.

As soon as the final whistle blew (a little early, dontcha think?), I assured myself I would online within minutes, registering my disgust throughout the world. What a piece of shit that final was. Liverpool played great in the first half, didn't dominate enough to capitalize on that, though- no goals. Petty free kick, lucky goal by Inzhagi (I am surprised it was credited to him, he harldy did anything).

Second half, lackluster from both sides. Liverpool seemed to admit defeat too soon. About 10 mins into the second half the only people really trying were Reina, Gerrard, Pennant and Kuyt. AC were going for it, though, with cocky swaggers and all- but who could blame them? In the end Liverpool just weren't doing enough and just got lazy. Inzhagi came around slid in a sly shot, Reina looked heartbroken.

It was a bit of an over-the-top celebration from Inzhagi though- kneeling on the sideline, looking up with defiance and cheering, grinning as if some divine penis was jizzing on him. I laughed for ages when Kewell's cross hit him in the balls a few minutes later, that cheered me up. Then Kuyt scored. Then Liverpool started trying again, but by then it was too late. Extra time, shit attempts at getting it in, timewasting substitutions, and then the referee ended the joke with a whistle.

La la la.

Oh well, I suppose AC wanted it more. We're even now.

Gattuso is a dirty bastard.

Boring.

Is it customary to spit into the trophy cup?

Ahahahahah....He must have been an Everton fan.

It was a decent game, better than the FA cup final, but not a classic by any means. Liverpool were probably the better side but neither team created masses of chances so it would be a bit of a stretch to say they were hard done by.

I've turned my TV off. Who spat?

Inzaghi did.

Yeah, nothing against the talents of the players, but it was a listless match for the most part. I agree that Liverpool had the ball the most, but that's fairly typical of how Milan plays. At least there was excitement near the end though.

That's Milan for ya. The cheeky wanker.

By the way, it seemed like Liverpool gave up too soon. I was sure about milan's victory when I saw that no one of Liverpool defenders went after the action of inzaghi's second goal, from a team trying to win the cup you'd expect at least a couple guys slidin' adn tryin' to prevent the (sloooooow) ball from rolling across the line...no one was there.

I felt bad for Crouch. He hasn't stopped talking about tonight's game since Liverpool beat Chelsea, and he only got about 15 minutes on the pitch. He had one great shot, but I think if he'd have started earlier on the score may have been different.

Oh, and;




Kaka and King Malkmus. Separated at birth?

Yeah, Timmy deserved a better chance, this time Benitez did not make the right choices tonight... Crouch and Kewell should have played from the start, Gerrard was not impressive this time around.

Mascherano and Alonso played better than Gerrard, definitely.

You may be right, as he can swing games (and he looked to be playing well when he came on, and should have come on instead of Kewell [!?!?]), but Crouch has a tendeny to be inneffective when it really matters.

I wanted Liverpool to win, of course, both because they're the English representatives and because of the whole Milan-scandal thing. But I'm also very happy to see the magnificant Paulo Maldini lift another trophy - he's the best player of my lifetime, and an example to all.

Liverpool should have used their first half dominance to create clear chances, rather than shooting from distance or tight angles. Pennant supposedly played well, and he certainly got forward with the ball, but how many good crosses did he put in? Zero. Riise and Agger were weak links tonight, which is a shame.

AC Milan did the right thing - soak up all the pressure, let the opposition wear themselves out, then take chances when they come (the second goal was taken beautifully). Of course as well as a great defense, Milan have players like Kaka and Inzaghi, so they know that one or two chances will often be enough to create a win. Benitez will be desperate to buy at least one good striker this off-season.


The referee was not impressive, whilst Milan's Genaro Gattuso was most amusing in the traditional foul-a-lot-and-complain-about-everything-role. Come to think of it, that was another thing Liverpool lacked...

That was an enjoyable game, not amazing but worth it.
Milan were really really mediocre from the defence forward, I reckon Liverpool will be kicking themselves when they watch the game back, the match was there for the taking. Alright they were unlucky with the goal but they looked comfortable for almost the whole game, Kaka Pirlo and Seedorf especially did absolutely nothing of note (cept Pirlo's free kick)

Well, kakà's assist for inzaghi second goal was just delicious, the ikara cult...

yeah but over the course of the match he was stopped by Mascherano and Carragher virtually every time he went forward

ok, but he gained the fault that made milan score the first goal and made the assist for the second goal, looks like a more than decent outcome for a final where he was obviously one of the more -"controlled"- players by the other team, no? ;) btw, I'm still sorry for the reds, but I'm kinda happy for milan actually.

I'm glad you didn't read all the other posts in this thread

I see that English fans are once again under attack for their behaviour in Athens, after the stadium authorities closed the gates and refused entry to any Liverpool fans who weren't already inside because their part of the stadium stadium was full. Countless people seem to be blaming UEFA for the situation, but are ignoring the fact that the situation wouldn't have arisen if Liverpool fans hadn't travelled to Athens without tickets on the basis that "we'll get in somehow" and entered the ground with forged tickets (and let's face it, they will have known that they were probably forged) or no tickets at all. For some reason the media spent yesterday looking upon the fact that there were 40 or 50 thousand Liverpool fans in Athens for the match when there weren't that many tickets available to the club as being something praiseworthy - "loyal supporters". Even the club was telling people not travel without tickets on the one hand, while praising the fact that 40,000 fans in Athens showed what great fans they have on the other. Liverpool FC are alweays keen to remind the world of Hillsborough when it suits them, but it's ridiculous how easily they forget the lessons of that tragedy at other times.

Yeah, the amount of people that travelled without tickets was pretty pathetic. Silly behaviour.

Or Brussels , for that matter. Seems like tragedies are remembered only when it suits certain people, innit?

I'm not going to pretend that Liverpool fans are the only ones who travel without tickets, but they do have this mentality that it is some sort of a birthright to be able to get into football grounds to see their team. They look upon being a "scally" as an honourable thing - this is what being a real Scouser is all about. But when things go wrong it's always someone else's fault. It's that mentality that makes me so anti-Liverpool FC.

So you're not denying that you appeared on TV in a leather catsuit, Nefeli?

Well done, Milan... I'm disappointed, the Reds had not the luck for them, they had real good chance to equalize, but they failed.
I remind Milan was not sure to play the Champion's League at the beginning of the season (brebery...), and that makes me feel they don't merit this cup.
But, it's Football, so, well... congratulations, Milan.

I'll just add to my earlier post that the British mentality where alcohol is concerned doesn't help, but it is a mentality that is well known and the authorities in cities that are visited by British teasm should do more to counter that.

I went to a Chelsea match in Northern Spain about twelve years ago. Six thousand Chelsea fans flew over and were taken to the city centre by bus. They were then left in a square that had no shelter from the sun and nothing but bars. There weren't even any restaurants. Anyone trying to leave the square was prevented from doing so by riot police. Six thousand Chelsea fans were left with nothing to do all day but sit in the sun and drink Spanish beer. Not surprisingly, there was trouble at the match.

A few years later, I went to a match in Stockholm. We were allowed to wander anywhere we wanted, the police were super-friendly, we were treated like human beings. People didn't drink so much - the evening passed off totally without trouble.

Post a picture, please !!! We want to see that !!

Sorry, I'm waffling. I'm trying to make some point about the mentality of the British abroad and the expectation that it leads to from the cities that are unfortunate enough to play host to them.

Yeah, but why should the english football fans be treated differently from the other football fans? It's only them who normally cause mayhem abroad, aren't they? If other football fans find themselves something to entertain themselves with that isn't alcohol and violence, why can that not apply to them too?

It's not waffling, man, it fits with that thread.:)

I don't know. It's a part of the British mentality that I don't understand, but it's also something that leads me to try to look as un-British as possible whenever I travel outside of these shores. I don't want to be associated with the idiot fraternity.

I'm not saying that italian football fans are that much better either. For as long as they stab each other at home and don't go ruining shops, historical monuments or attack people abroad, I don't care if they riot amongst themselves. And the violence can be just as bad as the english's, when it happens.

Damn, I missed the vote.

Sonicl, if Chelsea or Man U had got through to the final thousands of their fans would have travelled to Athens in the hope of picking up a ticket. I recall a similar number of MU fans travelled to the final in Barcelona. English and England fans have a long history of travelling abroad in big numbers, it's part of our footballing culture. Uefa and the ground's authorities should have realised this and be better prepared to cope with the influx. Apparently, there were no turnstiles and fans were being waved into the ground without tickets being checked. The fact each club only had 17000 tickets leaving an incredible 29000 to corporates and the so called 'uefa family' meant that a good proportion would be available on the black market. The authorities should have known that forgeries would also be in circulation because, again, this is not unusual at big sporting events. It seems a lot of people with legitimate tickets were turned back last night which caused some of the problems with police.

There were too few tickets available, the ground wasn't designed for football and the authorities were badly prepared for the numbers of fans prepared to travel.

I'm not excusing the behaviour of the minority of Liverpool fans last night btw. Turning up to the ground without tickets, buying recognisablly fake tickets and trying to force their way was dangerous and inexcusable. It meant that many of their fellow supporters with legitimate tickets didn't get to the see the game. But, I think it's another case of poor crowd management at a european ground (of which we've seen many examples this year) and the self-indulgent, cronism of uefa that's at cause.

Mind you it was a pretty poor match.

I agree with everything that you say, nick2767. When Chelsea reached the semi-final, friends of mine were trying to persuade me that if we got to the final, I should go to Athens with them and try to get a ticket out there. I joked with Fishmonkey that if it was a CFC v ManU final we'd go out to Athens to watch the game in a bar.

The distribution of tickets to major finals is a fiasco, especially in the way that so many tickets go to uninterested parties in the name of corporate entertainment, but that doesn't make the fact that people dealt with that by forcing their way into a place where they had no right to be in any way excuseable.

The head of UEFA is a twat, by the way, and that is proven by the fact that he tried to counter Michael Howards observations on what happened last night with the comment that the opinion of a man who introduced the Poll Tax isn't to be taken seriously.

It's William Galliard, he's sometihng like the Head of Communications. I heard his comments this morning. Prat. Uefa are very good at placing blame elsewhere and not any taking responsibility.


Sadly, my team doesn't have a cat in hell's chance of ever getting into europe. We don't even have our own ground. That'll give you a clue to whom I support!

Indeed, To quote a classic Cliche - Its the mark of great players when they can be invisible for 89 minutes and come up with the goods at the vital moment. But the fact Liverpool controlled him meant they should have taken advantage. If they had a Ronaldo or indeed a Kaka im sure they would have had more clear cut chances when they dominated. I guess thats what theyll be looking to buy in the window, they could have used a real quality attacking midfielder who could beat a man and make a killer pass.

on the crowd trouble stuff, ive never been to a match where its been an issue, i dont get to see many games anyway, but nice to hear some of yr anecdotes Sonicl, interesting how those trips abroad differed.

On the English fans thing, i can only go on what ive read and seen but recently with Man U and Spurs in Seville one of the issues has been the police. I heard on the radio last night that there was a massively disproportionate number of police at the game last night, and they prevented a load of fans who had real tickets in because the stadium was full - this with a load of Liverpool fans stuck at John Lennon airport, so there was clearly lax ticket inspection for forgeries.

And interesting point someone made on the radio last night is that people will always GO even if they dont get in cos its like a secular pilgramage, and they were saying how in Germany last year (i think) they just accepted it and catered for those who couldnt get in to games by having big screens etc. apparently last night there was a big screen showing that was called off - thats only going to fuel peoples frustration. Besides, if you capitalise on all those people who are going to come without tickets and dont get in think how much cash you could make from beer/screenings etc? It could be like a festival.