great text though it deserved full airing so to speak
Out of the darkness, light. Liverpool, robbed by injury of their captain, rocked by a day of insidious rumour surrounding Rafa Benitez’s future, their Premier League challenge in pieces at their feet, last night beat Real Madrid in the Bernabeu. On such nights are reputations forged.
Yossi Benayoun’s 81st minute header from Fabio Aurelio’s inswinging free kick gave Rafa Benitez’s side an invaluable lead and a precious away goal, but its importance runs much deeper than that. Europe’s form team casually swept aside, delirium for the 6,000 travelling fans and proof, if it were needed, that in Benitez Liverpool have a manager of rare talent.
Tom Hicks and George Gillett would do well to make their next contract offer a blank page and tell Benitez to write his own conditions, if that is the price to pay for keeping hold of the Spaniard.
This game must have almost seemed like an afterthought for Liverpool’s players, fans and, more specifically, manager. After weeks of mounting hysteria, the rumours swept Liverpool on Tuesday and flew out to Madrid with less than 24 hours before kick off.
Benitez had walked off the team bus, Benitez had been sacked. Bookmakers stopped taking bets, fans thronged the internet forums. It was a Real plot, his contract talks had collapsed. He would leave at the end of the season, he would leave at the end of the week. The club had descended into pure, unadulterated chaos.
Benitez was moved to dismiss the talk as ridiculous, but that suggests it had seeped through to the players. For Bellamy before Barcelona, read the Rafa rumours before Real. Liverpool really know how to gear themselves up for a big game.
Real, on the other hand, had the perfect preparation for the first instalment of a tie that will define their immediate future, too. They had won their last nine games, scored six in a single half at the weekend and have been resting key players for this game months in advance.
As if that was not advantage enough, Madrid spirits will have soared when they saw that Gerrard, named on the bench, did not even warm up with his team-mates. The will-he, won’t-he saga that had enveloped the Liverpool captain prior to this game had evidently resolved itself in the negative.
The reverential fear with which the Spanish perceive Gerrard dissipated. In its stead came noise from the stands, an endless cacophony of whistles, drums and horns, and a relaxed swagger from the players.
The artist formerly known as Lassana Diarra – now simply Lass – dominated the early midfield scuffles. The artist still known as Arjen Robben twisted and turned, jinked and feinted, toying with Fabio Aurelio. Inside five minutes, he fed Raul, and Real’s blessed number seven fired straight at Pepe Reina. Marcelo stung Reina’s palms with a fierce volley minutes later.
Where Real were crisp and neat, effortlessly switching play with all the class the weight of history demands from those who wear the pristine white shirt. Liverpool seemed coarse, almost vulgar, in comparison. Devoid of Gerrard, time and again they bypassed the economy of Xabi Alonso in favour of a long-ball game lacking in even the slightest guile.
For all his undisputable success, especially in his specialist subject of Champions League knock-out ties, it is hard to see the aesthetes of Madrid warming to Benitez’s pragmatism. Within 10 minutes, they were encouraging their side to attack with shouts of arriba. The crowd scented blood and wanted caution abandoned. Benitez would not even deign to consider such a move. It is hard to see two such polar philosophies dovetailing.
But, for all the crowd’s demands, Real found Liverpool as resolute as ever, and while the visitors could not match their hosts for panache, they edged their way into the game.
The best chance of the half, indeed, fell to Torres. Reina launched another long ball, Dirk Kuyt missed his flick and the Spanish international raced clear, only to see Iker Casillas palm his angled drive away. Two minutes later, the world’s best goalkeeper was again called into action, denying Benayoun after he latched on to another of Reina’s mortars. Alonso even managed to stretch Casillas from the half-way line just before the break.
Liverpool’s determination unnerved Real. Ramos’s side suddenly lacked cohesion, resorting to long shots from Robben twice and Marcelo once. All three flew comfortably wide, although Reina had to be alert to stop the Dutchman’s cross after Riera deflected it towards goal.
Both coaches had spoken before the game of this being a tie settled by minutiae, by mistakes or by magic. If the first half lived up to its billing as a tight, tactical affair, the second was enthrallingly open and Liverpool the principle beneficiaries.
Real poured forward, as the Bernabeu had commanded, but that left huge open spaces to exploit. Twice Yossi Benayoun found himself with the freedom to deliver the telling pass, and twice he failed, first overhitting a pass to Albert Riera, then picking out Pepe with Kuyt and Torres waiting in the box.
That was to be Torres’s last action of the game, a foot injury picked up in the first half seeing him limp off after an hour. It would be cruel to say he again failed to impress at the Bernabeu – he has never scored here and has never beaten Madrid – but it was hardly the homecoming he would have dreamed about.
Seeing their opponents shorn of their two world class players rallied Real briefly, Robben forcing Reina into a fingertip save, but the momentum had shifted. With 10 minutes to go, the slight Benayoun rose unmarked to nod past Casillas. Once more, Liverpool’s fans were engulfed by chaos.
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