Seeing Red...Part 2 - by Apollo

Now this is ridiculous.

In a game for the ages, Liverpool bounced back from an unprecedented 3-0 deficit at halftime to edge AC Milan in a penalty shootout to win the Champions League Final last night, thereby crowning the fifth-best team in England the best club team in all of Europe. While the determination of Liverpool was absolutely awesome and the inspired play of captain Steven Gerrard must have had English fans drooling, the incredible collapse of Milan was the true story of this match.

Led by the sublime passing of midfielder, and Brazil international, Kaka', Milan looked like they would roll to a rout and capture the title that they had sacrificed the Serie A Scudetto in order to achieve. In recent weeks, Milan looked terrible, barely qualifying for the final with a last minute victory over PSV Eindhoven and losing the Italian league championship to Juventus with some dismal performances. However, with the Champions League title looming, Milan rested its starters in domestic play in an all-out effort to salvage its season by winning the top award in European Club Football. The strategy looked like pure genius as goals from the ageless Paolo Maldini and a brace from Hernan Crespo staked them to a huge 3-0 lead. 3-0 in soccer is like 35-0 in american football, a 20 point lead in basketball, and 6-0 in hockey. Even though there was an entire half left to play, teams simply do not come back from a 3-0 deficit. Liverpool and its fans looked finished.

At the beginning of the second half, Liverpool moved its players forward, keeping only three defenders at the back to protect goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek. This looked like suicide in the face of Milan's attack, including Kaka', Crespo, and the reigning European Footballer of the Year, striker Andriy Shevchenko. English commentators said this game could get ugly with such a strategy and with Kaka' continuing to control the midfield, Milan looked like they would score another goal soon enough.

Gerrard quite simply, took over from then on. He furiously headed a seemingly harmless cross past stunned Milan goalkeeper Dida who was unable to catch up to the shot and looked as though he did not expect the shot to even reach the goal. Gerrard screamed for encouragement from his teammates and the pro-Liverpool fans. It worked. The next goal was from 20 metres out and Vladimir Smicer's shot had no business going past Dida, who is supposed to be the best goalkeeper in the world, or at least one of them. When Dida plays for Brazil, he can afford to be somewhat careless because with an attack so potent that Serie A superstar Adriano cannot even break into the starting lineup, he always has tremendous offensive support. Milan, normally a defensive team, had miraculously given themselves a 3-0 lead and now their goalkeeper had given back two goals in rapid succession.

Gerrard again imposed his will on the game when he sprinted through the Milan defence, took a pass in the box and embelished a touch into a penalty shot. Milan's protests seemed rather warranted as Gerrard was hardly fouled before going down. Dida brilliantly saved the penalty, but Milan defender Alessandro Nesta was slow to clear the rebound and just like that it was 3-3.

Despite the colossal collapse, Milan were still in the game. Despite doing their best New York Yankees 2004 impression, they still had plenty of time to redeem themselves and take the title. I'm not a huge Milanista but watching this game was just painful. Shevchenko missed two glorious opportunities in extra time, first a header that was saved by Dudek, and then, with the entire goal open for him, he blasted the rebound right into Dudek's arm. The sequence was so fast that Dudek did not even realize he had made a second save. If you were to break the net up into 100 pieces, there were maybe only 2 pieces that Shevchenko could have shot at and not scored. He picked one of them.

The penalty shootout has never been a fair way to decide a match in my opinion. Unlike the shootout in hockey, where the goaltender actually has a chance of stopping a breakaway, soccer shootouts are ridiculously unfair to both shooter and goalkeeper. The only way a shooter cannot score is to outguess himself, or think about the shot too much. A well placed shot, regardless of the goalkeeper's position, will score. It's only a matter of placing the ball and hitting it hard enough. If anything, the penalty shot is so heavily in favour of the shooter that it becomes almost comical if a player misses. Huge misses like David Beckham at Euro 2004, and Roberto Baggio at the World Cup 1994 are constant reminders that the shootout is not as automatic as one thinks. And that's why deciding a game as important as the Champions' League Final with a shootout makes no sense. Let them play until they drop or score, whichever comes first I say.

When Serginho and Andrea Pirlo both missed their kicks badly, Milan was in huge trouble. Dida and Kaka' gave them hope, the former by saving a Liverpool penalty, and the latter by converting Milan's second goal of the shootout. Shevchenko stepped to the spot needing to score, and proceeded to tamely chip the ball so lightly that Dudek had time to dive to his right, and then reach back to his left and still stop the shot.

It was certainly a game for the ages, and as a result of beating Chelsea, Juventus, and Milan, Liverpool are worthy champions, although their dismal Premiership campaign means they may not even get the chance to defend their title. It would have been far better though, to see the best of Milan and Liverpool for 90 minutes, rather than the best of Liverpool and the worst of Milan for 6 minutes.