Last night Rafa Benitez showed that he can still be an inspirational manager and stand toe to toe with any manager in Europe. His Liverpool side dispatched Real Madrid with such ease that besides Iker Casillas could have beaten Real Madrid by 13.
Rafa can still be petulant and will do or say something foolish before the weekend ends but on a given day he is as good as any one else.
Liverpool, were lucky the referee was blind and didn’t see the foul on Pepe for the first goal or that Gabriel Heinze didn’t actually handle the ball for the penalty and second goal; but besides the two goals from those incidents, Liverpool were always going to beat these clueless former galaticos.
Now they get ready to meet up with ManUtd at Old Trafford on Saturday for arguably the game of the season and Liverpool will have to find a way of repeating yesterday’s performance to leave with any points.
Chelsea, the team that will benefit the most from a stalemate between Liverpool & ManUtd, are also in the draw for the quarter finals of the champions league. A rough and tumble game between Chelsea and Juventus ended all square; and Chelsea progressing on a 3-2 aggregate. This was another game that could easily have been marred by referees incompetence but the hard working boys from west London refused to lay down and got the goals needed. Guus Hiddink is a good coach and is doing something right but they will lose sometime but I hope it is not this weekend.
ManUtd’s is on a quest for a clean sweep of all competitions and I can clearly state that this is not going to happen. Not counting the nonsense world club cup that they couldn’t have lost; the carling cup and premiership are already wrapped up but it then gets hazy. First, no team has ever done back to back champions league, Secondly, what about the Inter team they play tonight, then Barcelona and Bayern Munich and Liverpool or Chelsea to come. They might beat Inter but Jose Mourinho is just that kind of coach who will inspire his team into a score draw to win this tie.
Then the FA cup where they still have Everton and Chelsea to deal with.It will still be tough
Arsenal, the fourth member of this English quartet, is the team with the hardest job of getting by their opponents. A 1-0 lead is good but they could and should have scored more. Will Theo Walcott and Eduardo start; if they don’t, Arsenal will be out by 930pm tonight.
Arsene Wenger needs a strong spine in this team and Eboue, Song and Kolo are not it at all.
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