A blog about the latest soccer news, best players, transfer talk and anything else about the world game, with a heavy focus on the Selecao and Inter Milan!
Continuing my post from yesterday’s match, there was a good chance for Liverpool just after the restart when Finnan played a 1-2 and could have caused a lot of trouble if he wasn’t blocked. Mancini was forced to remove Cruz for Vieira on 54 minutes and leave Ibrahimovic alone in attack due to the missing player. On 57 minutes, Julio Caesar was called into action again, saving brilliantly after Torres received a fortunate rebound which set him on his way. On the hour mark Vieira was lucky not to give away a penalty after handling the ball in the area and Liverpool continued their domination in everything except goals. 73% possession in the second half and so many chances. Torres almost found the net a few minutes later and Lucas was replaced by Crouch in an attempt to use his ridiculous height.
It wasn’t until 67 minutes until Inter had their first corner and a minute later Ibrahimovic and Cambiasso were involved in a nice interchange which ultimately saw the Swede in an offside position. Rafa replaced Babel with Pennant, hoping to use his pace on the right but he caused little worry for Inter. Vieira had a shot but it was quite wide. A couple of minutes later Crouch had a real chance but he wasted it in trying to do too much. Unfortunately, Cordoba fell awkwardly and had to go off for Burdisso, a real shame because he was solid the entire match prevent any and all Liverpool attacks. On 82 minutes Inter had a good chance on the break with Vieira running at the defense but his pass to Ibrahimovic was lacking. Finally in the 84th minute Liverpool scored. Kuyt shot at goal and it was deflected downward off Maicon’s boot and ended up bouncing just in front of Julio Cesar who did not have time to readjust. Five minutes later Gerrard sealed the win with a shot into the far post.
Inter will host Liverpool in the return leg but have a lot to do now thanks to bad refereeing. Check out the highlights below.
The first half of this heavyweight clash began with the home side having most of the possession and pressuring Inter a lot in the first 10 minutes. The ref was handing out yellow cards like they were going out of fashion as Torres fell with any light knock. On three minutes the first went to Chivu with Aurellio putting the resulting free kick over the bar. Julio Cruz and Cordoba were solid in denying the early Liverpool chances. On 11 minutes, Materazzi picked up a yellow which was very soft as Torres fell while out-pacing the Italian to the ball.
Liverpool were marking Ibrahimovic very tightly and allowing very little space for Inter’s attack. As time went on Inter began to get into the match a lot more but generally sloppy passing was preventing them building up well. With 29 minutes on the clock, another soft Torres drop to the ground saw Materazzi pick up his second yellow and head off for an early shower. An incredibly harsh and ridiculous decision which left Inter with a lot to do. Next Torres tried to lure Cambiasso with a few cheeky slaps on the face as the young Spaniard gave away a free kick but the experienced midfielder wasn’t falling for his bait. On 44 minutes Liverpool had one of their best chances with a cut across the face of goal but now one to put it away and Maicon cleared fairly casually.
Barely a minute of stoppage time as the teams paused for the break but Inter with a great deal to do now! More to follow later…
Apart from Liverpool’s lackluster match against Marseille, the rest of the fixtures for groups A,B,C and D played out as follows…
Real Madrid and Lazio battled their way to equal points and a 2-2 draw. A brace from Van Nistelrooy took the prolific striker to 56 champions league goals but Pandev had a brace of his own for Madrid. The defensive ability of the great club was brought into question yet again as they were left exposed on various occasions. They were lucky to take any points away from this trip to Italy.
AC Milan traveled to meet Celtic in Glasgow and weren’t up to the task of defeating the “hoops” at home. The club with few wins in serie A of late can’t even turn to their usually good performances in Europe at the moment as Celtic took all points with a 2-1 win. McManus headed in from a corner to make the score 1-0 and Milan leveled after Kaka’ put away a penalty awarded for a foul on Ambrosini. Celtic made it 2-1 at the death after another Dida blunder that allowed the Aussie striker, McDonald, to slot away the rebound.
Olympiacos beat Werder Bremen, 3-1 after an amazing second-half come back to leave the German hosts with a sour taste in their mouths. Almeida was able to put away at least one of his many chances during the night to put Bremen in the lead, 1-0 but it wasn’t to last as Olympiacos came back to put 3 goals away in the second half. An amazing second goal from Patsatzoglu found the back of the net with a little help from a deflection.
Schalke defeated Rosenburg 2-0 with goals from Jones and Kuranyi making a successful roadtrip. Shakhtar were also able to upset their hosts, beating Benfica 1-0 in Lisbon. Continuing the tradition of wins on the road, this time it was Benfica’s league rivals, Porto, that were able to take 3 points from Besiktas in Turkey. The brilliant Quaresma waited until the 92nd minute to put the only goal of the match away.
Finally it was Chelsea that were also able to defeat their Spanish hosts proving that they’re not in crisis just yet after Mourinho’s departure. But it was David Villa that opened the scoring for the home side with a bit of luck allowing the ball to fall in a good position for him. Drogba combined well with Malouda, allowing the later to play the ball across the 6-yard line for Joe Cole to tap in and level the scores. Finally Drogba calmly placed a shot towards the far post and allowed Chelsea to go home 2-1 winners over Valencia.
Liverpool hosted Marseille in a game where the former failed to deliver. Liverpool seemed to be lacking inspiration and motivation but the same was not true for Marseille. The visitors controlled the match right up until they scored in the 77th minute and it was only then that Liverpool seemed to wake up and tried to pull a goal back and at least grab a point. The goal was scored by Valbuena and was perhaps the goal of the matchday. A perfectly driven strike from outside the area into the top-right corner which bounced off the cross-bar into the net and left Reina as a mere spectator.
Manchester united have managed yet another 1-0 victory at home, this time over Roma in matchday 2 of the UEFA champions league competition.
Proving their defensive dominance, Roma was left with few chances to score and they wasted most of these chances anyway. The man of the match was Nani who was popping up everywhere, causing many headaches for Roma and created many opportunities. In fact it was Nani’s pass that enabled Rooney to quickly fire a shot into the far post, just outside outside the keeper’s reach. Tevez also added a real spark after coming on for Saha who had a less than memorable match.
It wasn’t until the goal that Roma woke up and Spaletti started making the right changes (such as bring on Pizzaro). The best chance of the night went to Esposito who blasted what was basically a sitter out wide. A fair result that Roma shouldn’t be too disappointed with (especially considering their recent record at old trafford!).
Christiano Ronaldo almost scored one of the goals of the tournament with a cheeky backheel into the back of the net, but was found just offside. He was also the victim of an unintentional elbow that caused his face to spurt out a considerable amount of blood just above his left eye and probably caused thousands of teenage girls (and a few men inclined in a certain way) to faint.
