Manchester United will go through in Milan tonight because they are strong enough to win 3-2 again.
They’ll start at 100 miles and hour and generate a lot of momentum and run the legs off Milan’s old millionaires.
The Red Devils have lately shown the spirit of 1999, when United somehow found enough drive to win the games that mattered against Arsenal, against Juventus from 2-0 down, against Bayern in the Nou Camp from 1-0 down.
Rooney and Ronaldo are hot to trot and I’m betting on them tonight.
Back in 1998 the incomparable Arsenal double team forced United to buy Stam and Yorke and raise their game, and by doing that they made Fergie’s team good enough to grab a treble and earn his K. Sir Alex therefore owes his knighthood to Arsene Wenger .
Milan are not mugs, however. Pippo Inzaghi is 33 and gets goals by ghosting into scoring positions, so much so that Sir Alex once joked that he was “born offside.” Pippo once scored a hat-trick for Juventus in Kiev when Dynamo Kiev were among the best four teams in Europe.
LIVERPOOL last night?
Well, Dirk Kuyt is a trier. He is a ball-chaser, a scrapper. His main qualities are bravery and perseverance.
He is a component. In the machines that Rafa builds, he wants components who are roughly interchangeable
But last night, against Chelsea, Kuyt was effective. It was Kuyt who shoved Kalou away to create the pocket of space for Daniel Agger’s left foot to connect perfectly with Gerrard’s sweet and low free-kick, surprising everybody, including Petr Cech.
Joe Cole had hooked away Gerrard’s leg on the left side, between the touchline and the penalty area, and the ref gave Liverpool a freekick. You can watch Arsene’s Arsenal for 11 years and never see a rehearsed free-kick as perfectly executed as that. But you might not mind that because Arsenal is a top-of-the-range Mercedes while Liverpool is an old Vauxhall banger that gets you from A to B – and from Anfield to Athens.
So last night’s semi was 1-1on aggregate after 28 minutes and in 59 it was Kuyt who hit the bar with a header three minutes after Crouch hit Cech’s shin with a header. By then the contest was so finely posed that you had already started to wonder whether two 90-minute games would separate them.
Next goal wins it, but will there be a next goal ?
There wasn’t and the game yawned into extra-time and when Alonso’s shot came back off Cech, I was sure Kuyt would knock it over the bar but he buried the rebound in fine style to win the tie 2-1 on aggregate.
But that was disallowed for offside. Replays showed it was very, very close and you can’t blame the linesman because Kuyt was five yards beyond the Chelsea defence when the rebound came to him.
After 120, we saw Mourinho go over and ask Robben if he would take the first and Robben put his arms out wide as if to say, “OK, if that’s what you want” and walk away.
Zenden checked and sent Cech the way for 1-0.
Robben didn’t check and Reina saved.
Xabi Alonso slotted under Cech for 2-0.
Lampard blasted centrally for 2-1.
As Gerrard walked backwards quickly, I was shouting, “Don’t rush it !”
But Stevie G is an action-hero who rushes everything. That’s what works for him and that’s what’s always worked for him. He reacts to the situation, even a dead ball.
He placed it and walked backwards quickly and sidefooted swiftly past Cech for 3-1.
Geremi’s was poor and Reina saved to keep it 3-1.
Kuyt then fired home nicely to take himself into the final all top players want to win.
Liverpool had won 4-1 on penalties.
Carragher was superb and so were both anchormen. Mascherano was masterful, measuring his tackles and passes, while Makelele, in a similar role, worked nimbly in a smaller area.
Having said all that, there was no quality at Anfield. It was a tense game, a boring game, double pragmatic, a war of attrition for two hours, and after one hour it looked as if neither manager dared to put on a sub in case he unbalanced his own team and made his boys fall off the tightrope that was 1-1.
Chelsea, as so often, were one-Drogmensional and that didn’t work as well as it did in the first leg. So they didn’t create much.
Always remember that the so-called Champioins League is a formula created by rich clubs for rich clubs, and for TV.
So you might get two teams from the same league, who know each other too well, meeting in a semi or a final. And that’s what this was. The EPL’s third team beating the EPL Champions on penalties for the right to meet the EPL’s runner-up in the final, if they beat AC Milan tonight. England has the most money, so English clubs provide three of the four semi-finalists. If Uefa had not agreed to this Berluscoini-inspired formula, the rich clubs would have broken away.
Most neutrals want Manchester United to win it because they play with fire and flair and physicality and take everybody on and provide, invariably, a game of football that is far more entertaining than the slogathon we saw at Anfield last night.
OK, I know that the only thing that matters in a semi-final is the RESULT.
With Rafa, is it genius or luck? If it’s luck, will his luck run out soon?
Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho has become more vicious than ever, saying that Cristiano Ronaldo has “no education”.
Fergie’s reply was, “There are some people who are educated but have no principles -and that is the case here.”
QUITE !
If Manchester United win another treble they’ll take down Lord Nelson from his Column in Trafalgar Square put up a statue of Sir Alex.