you'll never walk alone

I was cursing myself early on thurs morning. Cursing, because after
spending wed night on a 32km march (with a river crossing and some
bloody cold hours of rain), instead of catching up on some much needed
sleep, I was up at 0215 watching the champions' league final. And
watching liverpool getting humiliated in istanbul by an
admittedly-superior milan side. 3-0 at halftime under-represented the
gulf between the two sides, and as I lay on my bed during the half time
break, I was disappointedly wondering if I should bother watching the
second half.



What the hell, I'll give them another 15 minutes, I thought at last.



And it turned out to be the most amazing 15 minutes of football I've ever watched.



When gerrard headed the first goal in, I was already half asleep. Like
the entire milan backline. When two minutes later, smicer cracked his
shot in from distance, I jumped onto my feet and high-fived my platoon
mate whilst trying to smother a shout of delight (our instructors had
issued a strict injunction against making too much noise when they
allowed us to watch the match). When alonso cracked his penalty rebound
into the roof of the net, none of us could control it any longer. We
exchanged high fives all around. Cheers pierced the silence of the wee
hours (milan fans had wisely stayed away).



The minutes after that were filled with tension. I was fervently hoping
that liverpool could hang on to penalties. With their erratic defence,
there was a threat everytime milan surged forward. Every time their
attack foundered, and you could hear the collective sigh of relief from
the small crowd around the tv. None of us believed our eyes when dudek
- who'd already parried a wicked free kick from shevchenko earlier -
made That (Double) Save to deny the Ukranian again.



'Serves him right for being so arrogant!' someone in the crowd
exclaimed in glee (shevchenko had earlier claimed milan would thrash
liverpool, and that chelsea would have been better opponents. Fate has
a sense of humour).



From that moment I started believing that liverpool would win it. As
the penalty shootout arrived there was almost a sense of inevitability
about it. Still, as the serginho stepped up for the first kick, as
dudek began his wiggling, as the watching crowd swelled with people
who'd woken up slightly before reveille, I was still uncertain.



Serginho's shot went ballistic. Hamann scored. Then dudek saved pirlo's penalty. And cisse put liverpool 2 up. Unbelievable.



Tomasson managed to score. Riise's attempt lacked his customary power
and was well saved. Kaka hit his perfectly. But so did smicer. 3-2, and
milan had to score their last penalty. The person they turned to:
shevchenko.



At that point I could sense it was all over. Shevchenko hadn't been
able to beat dudek all night (apart from his offside goal), and his
attempted chip backfired. Somehow, whilst diving to his right, dudek
managed to stick out a limb (I can't remember which) and stop the ball.
Game over.



The briefing room erupted. I'd just witnessed the unbelievable.
Liverpool are the European champions. After the most incredible
comeback in champions' league final history.



And they did it all in time for fall-in.