Eat my own words...two English teams from two different cities, from the posh West London and dreary Merseyside, Liverpool (could they be any different?) made it to the Champions League semi-finals and to make it worse, one of them is the most hated team in England...Chelsea. Liverpool were the other surprise team, is it a coincidence that both the teams are coached by foreign managers from Portugal and Spain? Rafael Benitez has managed to bring the same steely determination from Spain "The Valencia formula" to Merseyside.
While not everyone would have liked to see Liverpool in the semi-final, (Why? Lets face it neutrals are not talking about their fantastic flair or stylish individual play) you have to give credit to the players and especially Benitez for coming this far. No matter what happens in the semi-final the pressure is off from Liverpool to go to the final or win the Champions League, but on the home front they need to get their place in the Champions League or what might turn out to be a good season just might end up in disaster if Liverpool don't advance further in the Champions League and fail to win the Champions League spot by losing it to Everton! (yikes! that hurts). The calm, cool and calculated approach of Benitez is making him a popular figure not only in Liverpool but in England, not bad for a one time gym instructor.
In the second leg match against Juventus he actually did not have the services of two Liverpool icons Steven Gerard and former red Michael Owen and you must admire the man for marshalling his resources. The Champions League pot will now get bigger, which means Liverpool are bound to get a hefty sum from the Champions League kitty, this will mean a boost in the war-chest of Benitez when he ventures into the transfer market next season.
Meanwhile back in West London, there is no stopping Jose Mourinho. Everybody was hoping and actually some were sure that the "Blue Machine" would be stopped by Barcelona, but though it turned out to be a wonderful match, the Catalans were too attack oriented (naive when it came to defending) for their own good. Then came Bayern Munich and experts thought that the tactical superiority of the Germans would do the trick, but again Chelsea rose to the occassion with Frank Lampard and the resurgence of Joe Cole adding to the thrust.
Everything is coming to a boil now for Chelsea, the Anders Frisk incident did not help matters for Chelsea and nobody really knows what is going on in the boardroom of Chelsea. Whether Mourinho is unhappy with how the Frisk incident was handled remains to be seen and we have until end of the season to see if Mourinho is still at Chelsea. Could he leave Chelsea? Well Mourinho is more of a project man and if Chelsea seal the Premiership and Champions League it might mean finito for him, mission accomplished, but Roman's money might just do the trick.
Mourinho though is not helping himself, the childish antics of raising the finger to the Bayern Munich fans during their match, which he did this season in the League cup final against Liverpool might prove to be something he will regret. In this age of maniacal fans, it could be life threatning. Some observers said that this was a ploy to get the pressure of the team and focus more of him, but this does not make sense at all, when Mourinho won the Champions League at Porto the great Brian Clough who won two European Cups with Nottingham Forest said he was happy that a small team like Porto were winning the cup and he also liked Mourinho for obvious reasons, but the comparisons stops there. Clough though controversial never did underhanded tactics like this. One thing is certain if Mourinho accomplishes what he sets out to do, we will be hearing him for a long time...it is scary because the question is what next for him? Well I can Imagine.....management and team spirit seminars at IBM, Ford, British Airways...
While not everyone would have liked to see Liverpool in the semi-final, (Why? Lets face it neutrals are not talking about their fantastic flair or stylish individual play) you have to give credit to the players and especially Benitez for coming this far. No matter what happens in the semi-final the pressure is off from Liverpool to go to the final or win the Champions League, but on the home front they need to get their place in the Champions League or what might turn out to be a good season just might end up in disaster if Liverpool don't advance further in the Champions League and fail to win the Champions League spot by losing it to Everton! (yikes! that hurts). The calm, cool and calculated approach of Benitez is making him a popular figure not only in Liverpool but in England, not bad for a one time gym instructor.
In the second leg match against Juventus he actually did not have the services of two Liverpool icons Steven Gerard and former red Michael Owen and you must admire the man for marshalling his resources. The Champions League pot will now get bigger, which means Liverpool are bound to get a hefty sum from the Champions League kitty, this will mean a boost in the war-chest of Benitez when he ventures into the transfer market next season.
Meanwhile back in West London, there is no stopping Jose Mourinho. Everybody was hoping and actually some were sure that the "Blue Machine" would be stopped by Barcelona, but though it turned out to be a wonderful match, the Catalans were too attack oriented (naive when it came to defending) for their own good. Then came Bayern Munich and experts thought that the tactical superiority of the Germans would do the trick, but again Chelsea rose to the occassion with Frank Lampard and the resurgence of Joe Cole adding to the thrust.
Everything is coming to a boil now for Chelsea, the Anders Frisk incident did not help matters for Chelsea and nobody really knows what is going on in the boardroom of Chelsea. Whether Mourinho is unhappy with how the Frisk incident was handled remains to be seen and we have until end of the season to see if Mourinho is still at Chelsea. Could he leave Chelsea? Well Mourinho is more of a project man and if Chelsea seal the Premiership and Champions League it might mean finito for him, mission accomplished, but Roman's money might just do the trick.
Mourinho though is not helping himself, the childish antics of raising the finger to the Bayern Munich fans during their match, which he did this season in the League cup final against Liverpool might prove to be something he will regret. In this age of maniacal fans, it could be life threatning. Some observers said that this was a ploy to get the pressure of the team and focus more of him, but this does not make sense at all, when Mourinho won the Champions League at Porto the great Brian Clough who won two European Cups with Nottingham Forest said he was happy that a small team like Porto were winning the cup and he also liked Mourinho for obvious reasons, but the comparisons stops there. Clough though controversial never did underhanded tactics like this. One thing is certain if Mourinho accomplishes what he sets out to do, we will be hearing him for a long time...it is scary because the question is what next for him? Well I can Imagine.....management and team spirit seminars at IBM, Ford, British Airways...
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