Reds’ turkey in Kiev
ULTIMATELY it’s all about the finer details; on paper Real Madrid and Liverpool were relatively evenly matched going into last week’s Champions League final in Kiev, but when it came down to the nitty gritty the difference between the two sides was chasm-like, and it was all down to their respective benches.
When Mo Salah went off after being given a painful taste of martial arts as practised by the dastardly but deadly Sergio Ramos, Liverpool just didn’t have the quality on the bench that could come anywhere near replacing the Egyptian 44-goal man. As the game progressed their other bench options were also sub-par, as unlike Liverpool Real were able to sub on hugely expensive and highly skilled players at will.
In the end Liverpool gave an excellent account of themselves, only conceding three times with two being calamitous keeping errors and the other being a worldie that no keeper yet born would have had a chance of keeping out.
The lessons for Liverpool? It’s all well and good having a fearsome front three but strength in depth is also required, plus an elite keeper would seem to be very much a priority going ahead. I feel sure Jürgen Klopp will address these issues this summer.
Preening Diva
In my last words in last week’s preview of the Champions League final I beseeched all the deities to please not let us have to suffer Cristiano Ronaldo’s disgusting Charles Atlas impersonation, and thankfully the footballing Gods listened. Ronaldo wasted little time after the final whistle in luxuriating in and pointing out the fact that he (with the emphasis very much on “he”) has now won the tourney five times, but when you take each final on its merits he has actually only played well in one of them — that coming last year, when Real beat Juventus.
Gareth Bale, on the other hand, has effectively scored the winning goals in two of his four wins, while Sergio Ramos has notched up two vital equalisers in those finals. Even the likes of Ronaldo should take note of the old saying that there is no “i” in team.
From Southampton with love
It’s long been said that Liverpool’s reliance on exSouthampton players would be more easily augmented if they just bought the club and moved from Anfield to St Mary’s, but how ironic was it that last Saturday when the Reds had Lovren, Mane, Van Dyke and Lallana on the field, the player who took the game away from them was Real’s Gareth Bale? Formerly of Spurs and before that . . . Southampton.
Games to watch
International friendlies — today: 7.15pm England v Nigeria; Thursday: 10pm England v Costa Rica. The excitement builds (relax, I’m being ironic) as England begin their World Cup fine tuning in preparation for the real thing in a couple of weeks. With the team for the opening game mostly settled, the main issue to be decided is which of Jack Butland, Jordan Pickford and Nick Pope will get the nod. I would go with the latter but I fancy it’ll come down to a toss-up between Butland and Jordan.
England swings
That was seriously awful . . . It’s the back end of May, a time when spring has well and truly sprung and early morning mists blanket the beautiful English countryside, while the smell of burnt bangers on barbies, mixed with the lovely fresh aroma of newly mown grass, permeates the evening air. And more importantly it’s the opening of the English Test cricket season.
So given that the Lords Test between England and Pakistan was played in classic English conditions, how on earth were England so wretched? Out-batted, out-bowled, out-fielded, outcaptained, out-fought, outthought, in other words totally hammered by a young, callow Pakistan. This, in cricketing terms, could be the harbinger of a long, long summer.
Formula One
There’s no race this weekend which, after the dross show that we had in Monaco last week, is probably a good thing. Regular readers will know that I can’t stand the annual Riviera farce which is more about so-called glitz and glamour than actual quality motor racing, and surely the fact that the top six on the grid reached the chequered flag in exactly the same order in which they started confirms that my processional hypothesis is spot-on? It really is a total waste of two hours on a summer Sunday.
Next up, Montreal which, like Monaco, is a street circuit, but crucially one where overtaking is not impossible. To my eyes, at least, the views and settings are even better while the pretension index is thankfully considerably lower.
And finally
Last week I asked the following: how many Italians have won the Premier League? Bonus: connect Eden Hazard, Glenn Hoddle and the FA Cup final.
First off the former, while not a trick question, was quite sneaky in that I was looking for both players and managers, and perhaps surprisingly Mario Balotelli, who won the title with Citeh in 2011-12 is the only player to have achieved this. There have, however, been four Italian managers who have won the English game’s top honour: Carlo Ancelotti, Chelsea (200910); Roberto Mancini, Citeh (201112); Claudio Ranieri, Leicester (2015-16); and Antonio Conte, Chelsea (2016-17).
The bonus answer was that Hazard’s penalty in Chelsea’s 1-0 win over United was the first time the FA Cup final had been decided by a solitary penalty kick since Hodd the God did the trick against QPR in a replay in 1982.
This week: when Rotherham beat Shrewsbury in last week’s League One play-off they completed a memorable treble. Explain.
I do love a touch of irony. Word reached me earlier this week that a Lapta hostelry held its World Cup sweep and England went to the most vehemently ABE (Anyone But England) Jock on the island. I’m told that offers of a free England shirt for him to wear have been flooding in, but so far he has turned his nose up at each one. While I’d love to see him donning the colours, being realistic there’s more chance of him inviting the Pope for a drink than wearing anything with the Three Lions on it. Or to put it in more simplistic terms, we’ll see Jimmy the Hibby in Hearts colours before our ABE Jock decides to support the UK’s only representative in Russia.
On the subject of footie shirts, it has come to my attention that Arsenal are in the market for a much-needed half decent centre half. If the rumours going around are true, I hope for the sakes of my Gooner mates Steve Brown and Peter Monk that Arsenal don’t charge per letter for names on replica shirts. After all, how would you feel if your prospective new centre back went by the name of Sokratis Papastathopoulos? Personally I hope they do get him because I can’t wait to hear them pronounce the surname without slurring. (They do like an ale or two.)