FOOTBALL!

[bravecaptain]

head of steam, thats what i meant. meet you in the bar at the end, the big one. no beard. ill text you tomorrow so you can call me if you cant see me.

this ok with you adam?

mx

[Dave w.]

sounds good

see you tomorrow!

[AdamW]

Yes, that's fine.
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The Musical Mystery Tour,
every Sunday night 10pm - 1am, BBC Radio Wales
http://adamwalton.co.uk

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[Tommy BOO]

FULL TIME:

Liverpool 0 - 1 Olympiakos
0-1 Rivaldo 27 min.
1-1 Sinama 47 min.
2-1 Mellor 81 min.
3-1 Gerrard 86 min.

Half time thoughts:
This is certainly not looking good for Liverpool now. They've possessed the ball perhaps, but apart from creating two decent chances, they've been quite awful. Well, on the other hand, Olympiakos have created one good chance but they also managed to score from that...

Not a very good game so far, but I've seen a lot worse.

Liverpool have been a bit unlucky, they had a goal disallowed early on the first half. Milan Baros climbed above an Olympiakos defender (while Hyypiä pushed their goalkeeper) to head the ball into the goal. Once again, all referees wouldn't have disallowed the goal, but I can't blame the the referee really.

Minutes later Liverpool had a free kick from the left hand side of the Olympiakos penalty box. Xabi Alonso delivered a low hard pass into the box, Steven Gerrard flipped the ball with his backheel towards the goal, it took a deflection from one or two Olympiakos defenders and hit the right post! Unlucky... Gerrard was already celebrating the goal too.

Four yellow cards, 3 for Olympiakos and 1 for Liverpool (could have been more to be honest!) and I can feel more coming on the second half!
On the 27th minute, Olympiakos' Brazilian star Rivaldo got a great through pass from the midfield. He dribbled past Jamie Carragher neatly and tried to do the same for Hyypiä, and Hyypiä could do nothing but to bring him down. Free kick for Olympiakos from about 20 meters.

Rivaldo and Pedro Djordevic went on to take it while Chris Kirkland (Liverpool goalkeeper) was trying to place the wall. He failed miserably and was awfully positioned as well. Just before Rivaldo was about to choose, Harry Kewell and Antonio Nunez ran off the wall for some reason, probably to block the shot (or trying to avoid getting hit by the ball more likely!), leaving a big hole in the wall... Rivaldo saw that and shot a low hard shot past the awfully positioned Liverpool goalkeeper and into the back of the net.

Not much happened after that on the first half...
AS Monaco are already winning 0-3 at Deportivo, so Liverpool need to score at least 3 goals on the second half now! Is that going to happen? I don't think so.
Well, the second half has just started and Liverpool have equalised on the 47th minute! More later...


Second half thoughts:
Uh huh. Looks like I was wrong then.
Sinama, who was subbed in for the second half, scored the equaliser on the 47th minute. Kewell, who was awful on the first half, made a great run on the left wing, took the ball past an Olympiakos defender, passed the ball to the front of the goal where perfectly positioned Sinama had no trouble shooting the ball into the empty goal. A quick equaliser, just what Liverpool needed.

However, Olympiakos started to defend the draw after that and neither side managed to create anything dangerous, until...

... 79th minute of the game. Milan Baros is replaced by Neil Mellor. A minute later, Magic Mellor (who also scored the winner against Arsenal last week) scores 2-1 and gives a glimmer of hope again for Liverpool. Sinama, the best player of the second half, crosses the ball from the left wing, it's headed towards the goal by a Liverpool player and the Greek keeper Nikopolidis drops the ball in front of him... then, Neil "Magic" Mellor appears from nowhere, slides in and shoots the ball into the goal. Then he pulls a rabbit out of his hat and mysteriously disappears only leaving a red mist behind him. Magic Melz has done it again.

The game that had been painfully boring for most of the time, suddenly becomes exciting again. Liverpool has the total control of the game for the last 10 minutes. Olympiakos players look exhausted and Liverpool move the ball dangerously around (and inside) the box all the time, and the goal is hanging in the air (well, not literally)...

The third goal is a beauty. Shame that it had to be scored by the dirty pig Gerrard though, who should have been sent off earlier in the game... Well, he will miss the next match anyway, which isn't good for Liverpool but I don't like him. I don't dislike him as much as I used to though...

4 minutes left. Olympiakos defense is totally lost again, Liverpool have the ball on the left wing. A cross into the box finds a Liverpool player who heads it back to Gerrard who has been waving his hands and waiting for a pass for quite some time. He shoots from 20 meters, the ball goes past diving Nikopolidis and into the right corner of the goal like a rocket! Liverpool fans go mad and Olympiakos can't believe it.

Liverpool use the same tactics that Olympiakos tried to use for the previous 40 minutes, but with more success, until the final whistle. A little footballing miracle has happened again, who would have believed that Liverpool can still make it to the second round after the awful first half?

It would be nice to hear what Dave w, Martin, and Mr Goodshit (a.k.a. Adam W) thought of the game. They're probably still celebrating the victory and Martin didn't make it to the last train back to Cardiff tonight! Great victory for Liverpool, I enjoyed it a lot too. Also, Barnsley won last night so that's another reason to be happy tonight!


_________________
"Tommy Boo has played a pivotal role in my life. I've looked up to him since I was a kid and he has inspired every note of music I have ever written. The man is a fucking genius" -BC

[Guest]

Full time:
Liverpool 3 - 1 Olympiakos

enough said.

[Tommy BOO]

After such a good football show, I thought I could post tonight's other Champions League scores as well.
Also, updated the Liverpool V Olympiakos match report, just in case someone read it after the first half...

Group A:
Deportivo La Coruna 0 - 5 Monaco
Liverpool 3 - 1 Olympiakos

Group B:
Bayer Leverkusen 3 - 0 Dynamo Kiev
Roma 0 - 3 Real Madrid

Group C:
AFC Ajax 2 - 2 Bayern Munich
Maccabi Tel-Aviv 1 - 1 Juventus

Group D:
Fenerbahce 3 - 0 Manchester United
Lyon 5 - 0 Sparta Prague

Lots of goals tonight but I'm sure I saw the most exciting match of those!

Here's a link to the final standings in each group (not going to type all those!)
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/ucl/Standings/index.html


_________________
"Tommy Boo has played a pivotal role in my life. I've looked up to him since I was a kid and he has inspired every note of music I have ever written. The man is a fucking genius" -BC

[John M]

What an incredible game, thank god we're through. He's all smoke and mirrors is Stephen Gerrard.

[John M]

What an incredible game, thank god we're through. He's all smoke and mirrors is Stephen Gerrard.

[Guest]

my head hurts.

my shoes are all muddy for some reason.

it was very exciting and harry kewell played really well for once i dont know what match tommi was watching but i dont recognise anything he wrote from the game i saw.

i missed my train but it was worth it so i'm now at my mum and dads house. the w brothers made their trains but we managed a couple of celebratory pints afterwards.

i spent the first half with tears in my eyes cos i needed the loo so bad, i swear my bladder has shrunk to the size of a wee marble (wee marble! good one).

ok, back to the shithole, god i miss archway

mx

[Tommy BOO]

I thought that Kewell was a bit lost on the first half, just like most of the Liverpool team really... The second half, however, was incredible - I never thought that they could still win it.
Perhaps my match report was badly written, but I think that games are always much much more exciting when you're there. And everything looks totally different than on TV of course...
The game was worth watching only because of the last 15 minutes only, that was the best football drama since Euro 2004.Gerrard's volley was one of the best goals this season too.
Bloody excellent. When's the second round draw?

Have a safe trip back home, Martin.


_________________
"Tommy Boo has played a pivotal role in my life. I've looked up to him since I was a kid and he has inspired every note of music I have ever written. The man is a fucking genius" -BC

[AdamW]

Wow!

Ow!

w
_________________
The Musical Mystery Tour,
every Sunday night 10pm - 1am, BBC Radio Wales
http://adamwalton.co.uk

http://myspace.com/adamthomaswalton

[Guest]

Tommy, I was wondering what you were on about half the time as well

Liverpool were the better side for the first half an hour, too... Olympiakos didn't deserve to be in the lead anyway.

It's certainly a nice thought right now to know that that cheating **** Rivaldo is out of the Champions League, and Liverpool are through to the next round after what has seemed like a refereeing conspiracy against them this season...

[Dave w.]

that has to be the most surreal night ever.

thanks to martin, adam and the boys in red.

[Dave w.]

the goals are here:

http://66-194-40-189.gen.twtelecom.net/~boardint/

called goals 1, 2 & 3 (8 december)

dl'd the last one, and the picture's a bit muddy, but better than nothing.

[John M]

These are the teams that we can play in the next round: AC Milan, Bayer Leverkusen, Internazionale, Juventus and Lyon. Not sure who I'd want out of that lot. But we must forget about that now and get on with beating Everton this weekend.