Liverpool in semis

Well, conventional wisdom was wrong, after all.

Much as I admire del Piero, I am yet to see a game he has taken by the scruff of the neck and delivered the goods for his team, the way Steve Gerrard supposedly does for Liverpool.

The commentators' pro-English bias was so blatant in this match. One of the two bozos was literally pleading with the Liverpool team to "just hang in there" for the last five minutes. Wonder how bad it will be in Istanbul, with one English club assured of a place in the final.

I also ended up watching the replay of the Chelsea-Bayern match. In spite of knowing the result in advance, I sort of enjoyed the game because I didn't know when the goals had been scored (did Chelsea go 2-0 up before a heroic fightback by Bayern, or were Bayern sitting on a 3-1 lead, expecting to enter the semi-finals, only to be thwarted by a last-gasp winner from Chelsea?)

Interesting side note: the only way extra time would become necessary in these home/away fixtures is if the scoreline of the first leg is duplicated in the second leg, with the winner/loser being reversed.