I'd like to read a similar article in a vice versa sense, ie -how Liverpool had the capacity to recover when all seemed loss, well we read a few of them already I suppose, BELIEF..... Gerrard, Carragher, Hamman, Smicer, Alonso, Benitez etc etc.....and pertinently THE FANS....
A mate of mine was watching the game( down the pub) with a "neutral" who happened to be a big gambler he asked him at HT what odds he'd give him for Liverpool to lift the trophy. "500-1" came the reply "here's a pound" said my mate ;-)
Chelski scumthey Sorry, the two points were not meant to be so closely related. What I meant was, I would be...
OT: Portable DABHi. Anyone know if you can yet get a portable DAB radio that is actually small, and may run of...
When he told me this story I reminded him he was our keeper in school and pretty decent as I remember, we never won any inter school trophies but our form won the 5-a side every year , he was the keeper and iirc in he fourth year he won it for us in a penalty shootout. Childsplay ;-)
GOT TO BE ONE OF THE BESTDAVE-G YOU HAVE MADE MY f***ING NIGHT! a fantastic retort to the usual manc pooe. tee hee Liverpool finished a disappointing fifth......... they claimed their fifth triumph ... STEVEN...
Can fragile Milan recover?
Some players admit Ancelotti's team are mentally scarred by loss. Kevin Buckley reports from Milan
Sunday May 29, 2005 The Observer
In August 2003 , on a scalding afternoon at AC Milan's Milanello training complex, Carlo Ancelotti was still bathing in the afterglow of beating his former club Juventus to lift the 'big-eared' cup at Old Trafford three months previously.
Discussing the life of a top coach in modern football, he opined: 'At this level, the job of a coach isn't to work on a player's technique, his skills; he already has that. They arrive here already as top players. You have to work on their minds. It's primarily a job of psychology.'
Article continues After witnessing largely the same side suffer the footballing equivalent of a collective mental breakdown in last Wednesday night's final, he must now be fearing it will take a coach-load of psychologists to figure out what went on in his players' heads in Istanbul. And after spectacular meltdowns in two consecutive Champions League campaigns - they lost 4-0 at Deportivo La Coru–a in last year's quarter-finals after arriving in Galicia with a 4-1 advantage - Milan may yet go the way of so many talented, but tortured, artists.
Yet before Istanbul it had been the physical state of Ancelotti's illustrious charges that had been worrying most observers, after an alarming drop in condition of almost his entire squad from April onwards. A 1-0 home defeat by Juventus effectively surrendered the title, then they twice lost an away lead at Lecce. Alarm bells sounded. The club blamed '10 games in 30 days'. Resting the regulars for their Serie A fixture preceding Istanbul had the desired affect. It was Liverpool who suffered cramp attacks in extra time. So elegantly stylish was Milan's first-half performance that the greatest surprise was that they held only a three-goal interval advantage. Then came the six minutes of madness.
Reds found not guiltyLiverpool Echo, 3 June 2005 Reds found not guilty EXCLUSIVE by Chris Bascombe, Liverpool Echo...
As ever, midfielder Gennaro Gattuso didn't mix words at the airport when he told La Repubblica newspaper how the whole side had just 'frozen with fear' from the moment Steven Gerrard headed Liverpool's first goal. 'We had been totally dominant. We should never have give them the chance to stage a comeback. It's not the first time it's happened, which has to make us think and ask ourselves questions.'
Ancelotti appears still to be in denial on the nature of the deep crisis afflicting his team. Reminded of Deportivo and the two-goal advantage that evaporated in this season's semi-final at PSV Eindhoven, he replied: 'No, I don't think that the players are mentally scarred by those events. It wasn't a physical thing, or a mental thing. I don't know what it is. Strange things happen.'
Asked why he hadn't tried to interrupt the collapse in Istanbul with a substitution, he sounded like a witness to a road traffic accident: 'There just wasn't time. Everything happened so quickly.' He seemed to confirm Gattuso's comments when he admitted that the curious lack of protest by Andrea Pirlo over Liverpool goalkeeper Dudek's flagrant breach of the rules to stop Milan's second penalty was 'probably down to the shock. He was just still so taken up with what had happened.' The ever-honest Italy midfielder was more blunt. Gattuso admitted: 'From this kind of blow there's the risk that we will just never recover. Including myself.' Broken minds sometimes never do." -- "Luis Garcia laughed off suggestions that a Spanish referee would help the Reds in the CL final."
