As Frank Lampard said: “We have beaten Liverpool three times this year and they won’t want to end up on the losing side again. When you get this far and you are playing a team that you know so well, the stakes are extremely high.”You look at the way they played against Juventus in the first half and you know they are going to give anyone a good game in that sort of form That in itself is very, very tough. Liverpool win away in Graz, then lose at home; overwhelm Bayer Leverkusen in the first knockout round by 3-1, then go to Germany in such unexpectedly adventurous mood that they end up repeating the same scoreline.Equally positive at Ports-mouth in midweek, but with Fernando Morientes now ineligible, the visitors will presumably revert to the 4-5-1 formation employed away to Juventus. It is the element of unpredictability characterising even the Euro-pean element of an erratic season that lends this English affair much of its charm. Each time, he and his staff merely increased their detailed planning for the away game, covering all eventualities of scores, substitutions and tactical changes – and won each match on a set-piece.So while the task, ideally, will be to secure a wide enough lead to make Liverpool come out and attack at Anfield, failure to do so should not trouble Stamford Bridge any more than last Wednesday’s goalless draw with Arsenal.That Liverpool are capable of matching the resolution and occasional inspiration of that performance by the outgoing champions cannot be denied by anyone who witnessed their efforts in the matches against Juventus.
His message, in the words of the less cerebral Corporal Jones, would be: “Don’t panic.” Three seasons of successful two-leg football with Porto (Uefa Cup and Champions’ League winners) and then Chelsea have made him an expert in the finer points of the art.He ensured, for instance, that there was no alarm in previous semi-finals when Porto against Deportivo La Coru?nd Chelsea against Man-chester United in the Carling Cup managed nothing more encouraging than a goalless draw from their home leg. A good one would be to ensure that the traditional pre-match player’s speech in the dressing room is delivered by one of the survivors from last season’s shattering defeat in the semi-final against Monaco. There are half-a-dozen candidates, and each could doubtless issue a harrowing reminder of how it felt to have thrown the tie away not once but twice.Mourinho, of course, has very different memories of that stage of last year’s competition, which could prove equally instructive. Given a little bit of mutually beneficial throat-cutting by Tottenham in the north London derby tomorrow, a Chelsea crowd will be able on Wednesday night to acclaim their club as champions of England for the first time in half a century.
Should celebrations be in order as the team take the pitch, Liverpool would do well to play up to the occasion as well: never mind Champions’ League protocol, form a guard of honour, hand over congratulatory pennants and do everything possible short of joining in a chorus of “It’s A Blue Day” to distract their opponents from the business at hand.Unfortunately, Jose Mourinho is a wily enough old bird to be wise to any such tricks, and to have a few in his own nest as well.
“She has a lot of confidence.” Not to mention watches.However, some are never happy with the riches they have, and despite Benitez’s desire to have the semi-final as the sole focus, the Gerrard-Chelsea subplot will be played out again. His eyes glaze over, although he does have a warning for his captain. “I have talked to Stevie and told him that to change from being the star at a club like this, to being just one more star in a huge squad of them… well, I’m not sure of the value in such a move.”His accountants may tell him it would be somewhere in the region of £35m, although the only currency Benitez truly understands is football It is a conversion rate Chelsea might care to remember.. “We showed that we could win, as in the first leg, playing well with the best players.
But we showed in the second leg that without Steven Gerrard we could come through when working hard with the best ideas. This has given us the confidence to believe we can do two different things and that we can beat Chelsea.”It is a confidence brewing not only at Anfield (most vocally with the first-team coach, Paco Herrera, who has been telling his friend: “Rafa, we will lose four times against Chelsea this season. But we will win the fifth time and will be in that final”) but also at his Wirral home “My wife has a lot of confidence in me. At Val-encia she told me, ‘You will win the Spanish League and you will buy me a watch’ We do it, she gets her watch.
She then says, ‘You will win the Uefa Cup and you will give me another watch’ We win – another watch. So now she tells me, ‘You will win the Champions’ League and you will get me another watch, but more expensive this time’.” He laughs. But in football you need just one goal, which could come from a corner, a free-kick, whatever Look at us against Juventus. Sure, they had good players, but we worked hard and got through. Why? Because it’s football.”It also happened to be the best football Liverpool have played in this, or many a season; two legs, in fact, that Benitez asserts will have his boys striding forward into a trophy-laden future. Their goalkeeper that day, Chic Thomson, the Petr Cech of his time, remembers it well. “Funnily enough, there were no wild celebrations, not like there will be now.