By Myles Palmer
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YOU can’t compare Bayern-Arsenal to Bayern-Chelsea because Arsenal was a first leg and this is a second leg.
The first game started at 0-0 and this one starts 2-4.
No Chelsea player – even Carvalho on his worst night – will head an 80-yard Kahn clearance to Pizarro, as Toure did after three minutes
Pizarro and Makaay are playing.
And so is Demichelis, the Argentinian assassin who missed the first leg
Tonight will be interesting because Bayern have four hatchet-men in midfield : pick four from Salihamidzic, Ballack, Frings, Demichelis, and Ze Roberto.
Ze Roberto was a zippy, swerving ball artiste at Leverkusen but he really puts his foot in these days.And his knee, his thigh, his hip and anything else that’s available.
He kicked Vieira and he kicked Lauren and he will kick Duff and Cole and Lampard
I CAN’T SEE CHELSEA NOT SCORING, so I can’t see them not going through.
And Chelsea might score first.
They might score early, as Bayern did against Arsenal.They might Bayern Bayern.
Oliver Kahn says : We can concentrate and score a goal in each half.We won’t be outmuscled again.
WE SHALL SEE – IT WILL BE DRAMATIC.
Anything could happen.
But my gut feeling is that the worst Chelsea will do is lose 2-1.
A FRIEND was in Italy last weekend and said some senior Italian journalists reckon Chelsea can beat everyone in the Champions League except Milan.
He reckons the whole world is now looking at Chelski because we have never seen anybody throw so much money at a football club before, so its soap opera, just as Madrid’s assembly of galacticos was.
What Perez did was was crude and vulgar and this is crude and vulgar too.
But,for a global audience, it’s compelling.
DID YOU KNOW that Mourinho doesn’t give a team talk these days?
He prepares the players, tells them what to expect, shows them videos of their direct opponent.
But in the last month he has not given a team talk in the dressing room.
He chooses a different player – Joe Cole, Gudjohnsen, Lampard, Terry so far- to give the team talk just before the game.
CHELSKI has a savage momentum now and this episode is a bizarre moment in football history.
Abramovich is a very clever, ruthless guy who has created a western identity and has immunity from prosecution while Putin is President.
Orphaned at the age of four, the billionaire with the sad little smile takes a helicopter from his Sussex estate to the Battersea helipad and goes by armoured limousine to Stamford Bridge.
The limo isn’t just bulletproof, it’s bombproof.
He is in a pod which can’t be shattered by a bomb underneath the car.
Last week on TV I saw him walking into the ground.
He was wearing jeans and flanked by a diamond of suited Russian-faced bodyguards in suits.
The choreography was incredible.
A modern emperor in a protected moving space with a small phalanx around him.
At the Bridge they say he’s had a tunnel built, so he can vanish if his life is threatened.
I’VE GOT A DAY OFF TODAY but I don’t have the imagination to do anything interesting on my day off, so I’m just gonna get a haircut and read the Guardian and go and see if Sophie will eat some cucumber or lettuce.
Our tortoise woke up from hibernation two years running on St Patrick’s Day and next year she might go for a hat-trick .
I’ve been busy lately but I’m starting to feel like a human being again.And we get Caroline back tonight.
I thought the girls were joking when they said, Let’s go to Thailand for Easter !
My Easter is a blur.
Can’t remember anything except Easter Monday. Thought the gym would be empty but it was full of people I’ve never seen before. Lots of kids with their dads.
In the shower I heard a sound from 3 or 4 stalls down.
It was a sound you rarely hear there, but it was an unmistakeable thump-rattle sound.
It was the sound of someone hitting a stall with the heel of his hand.
Man : “Open the door !”
Little daughter : “No, I want to get wet by myself !”
Man : “Alright, see you at home, yeah?”
Little daughter : ” Noooo!!”
Sound of door unlocking.
I came home and watched Sky News at 5.45 and saw BREAKING NEWS : another earthquake off Indonesia.
The girls were at a beach that had been hit by the tsunami.They were 20 metres from the sea and it was 2 am Thai time.
I checked the website of where they were staying and there was a mobile number and I called it and woke the guy up and told him I was Caroline’s dad.
I could hear him walk and knock on the door and say,”Can I come in?”
She was awake. She was in bed with John Grisham.
“There’s been another earthquake,”I said.” The Thai goverment has just issued a tsunami warning.”
“F*** !” she said.
They packed their bags onto the pickup truck and watched TV and the government withdrew the tsunami warning. So they had an all-night party on the beach.
Tonight she’s coming home….during the Bayern-Chelsea game……
THIS WEEK I’M BACKING Van Bommel’s PSV to beat Lyon, Juventus to edge Liverpool in a battle, and Milan to eliminate Inter after starting 2-0 up.
Emerson couldn’t sleep after Anfield because of the things that were said in the dressing room after they lost 2-1.
Camoranesi called them all “sons of bitches.” He admitted, “I’ve never lost it like that before.”
I’ll stick with Zlatan and Del Piero to score the goals.
April 12th 2005.