A season on the Brink by Guillem Balague

It's a cliffhanger. He's doing a sequel, i'm sure of it.

it's a trip across benitez-ville and the road to Istanbul. Full of the usual trite anecdotes from players, pundits etc. many you will have read before, some not. Some absolute clbutt, contradictory and funny. Traore claims never to have said "i saw-heard milan celebrating at H-T" Chris Bascombe says he has Traore saying it ON TAPE.

Balague, who i presume we are all familar with is quoted as having lived for "many" years in Liverpool.

Pako(born '63)is Liverpool through and through AND through due to the Sociedad connection, he wanted Rafa to come to Melwood during the sojuourn to Italy and England studying training etc, they never made it, that time.

There are plenty of details on the two Gerrard sagas, Valencia vs Rafa and "rafa the early years", all good stuff. The latter Gerrard saga was ALL down the Struan Marshall and his media mates, if the book is to be believed.

Most, if not all of the then players are buttessed in some form or other.

There is a short chapter on the Chelsea semi final, Michael Robinson commentating for Spanish radio literally crying his final minutes of coverage, unaware apparently at the emotional state he was in.

For me what was revealing throughout is the inordinate, gargantuan amount of work behind the scenes, training, rafas attention to detail, his man management, his persona as LFC managerfamily man, it is suggested that he and Ayesteran play out the good cop bad cop role for the players "benefit", the mind games with the players. Tactics, diets you name it. And Rafas ultimate respect for the club, it's history and the manner in which he is going about writing his own chapter in the "book" of Anfield.

I can't emphasise this enough, if the book has any modicum of reality, but if you ever wondered about the work that goes on between training pitch and matchday it seems to be a truly mbuttive amount of work. No wonder both Houllier and Rafa are-were always on about work work work. Houllier doesn't recieve the best of appraisals btw, all round, but maybe people have their own opinions on the clbutt of the two managers GH and RB.

Of course there is lots of praise for Rafa and his team of staff, the goalkeeping coach explains in detail how he believes Dudek, with the aid of his training was able to pull off those saves in Istanbul for example. Not that the emphasis is solely on Ochoto, on balance.

There is a full rundown of events as they happened in Istanbul on the day, during he match.

Baros was selected literally last minute over Cisse. Kewell an hour before the team sheet announced. Hyypia,Carragher,Hamman and Gerrard were deep in conference for part of the afternoon before the game conferring on how to beat Ac Milan, clearly it was a shock for them that Hamman started on the bench. There is quite some emphasis on the lengths rafa and his team went to in order to calm the players anxiety in the days and weeks before, for the most part they couldn't.

Rafa chose kewell in order to have the best attacking options he could muster, he wanted a performance that was akin to the offensive, high tempo displays that had brought us to Istanbul. Then Maldini scored.... Then Kewell, genuinely, got injured.

The infamous half time team talk is fleshed out, the overall scene reads like chaos. At one point Rafa had 12 players fielded on the tactics board. A few anecdotes come into play from the likes of Parry, Alonso who both conjured with LFC scoring 3 second half goals a few times that season. All was not lost! ;-) Extra time is roundly acknowledged as hanging on for penalties, the team were utterly and completely spent. Smicer was f***ed and unsure he could even take a penalty, granted there is an element of drama in the book. Plenty of players got knocked back for a crack at a pen, Luis Garcia and Alonso particularly. Gerrard was down as fifth, Garcia sixth.

Other details include Rafa recieveing a text post match from SAF which Rafa describes as "a nice gesture" which it surely was. David Moores recieved a text from Tony Blair. Karen Owen(michaels sister), present at the Ataturk, sent him one that read "you should have been here" Owen is then quoted at length about not regretting his move to Spain, learning a new language, improving his game and warming the bench.

The amazing homecoming is covered, on which Ayesteran says 3 images stay in his mind, two of LFC fans but one of a woman in a first floor window on Queens Drive with a sign that read "i am an evertonian" and really dry look on her kipper.

Sorry to waffle on, I thought as the year closed it was a good time to review Istanbul, the book more than serves that purpose. For me it's right we look back on that day, it has changed the year dramatically,changed the club, the fans, the lot, imo. Now to wrap it up and read the Fowler one before that has to be wrapped shortly as well.

;-)

Merry Xmas cunts!.

here's some more reading to put a smile on your face.

ps i have just saved you £16.99

pps- the non verbatim but acknowledged RB half time "rouse"-

"don't let your heads drop, all the players who go on the pitch after half time have to keep their heads held high, we are Liverpool, you are playing for Liverpool. Do not forget that. You have to hold you heads high for the supporters. You have to do it for them. You cannot call yourselves Liverpol players if you have your heads down. If we create a few chances we have the possibility of gettng back into this. Believe you can do it and you will. Give yourself the chance to be heroes."

-- "i'm just a soul whose intentions are good, Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood"