Why Liverpool won it the 5th time
As Liverpool prepare themselves for tonights Champions League final in Athens, If I were a Liverpool supporter I would feel short changed this season.
Over recent months it has become apparent that Rafael Benitez has been guilty of playing for one competition, thus getting to the final has thrown Liverpool into the limelight once more but compared to Manchester United and Chelsea’s seasons they simply fail by the same standards.
If I were a Manchester United fan or a Chelsea fan I would have prefered to go out in the Semi-finals of the Champions League knowing that my players had given everything to the cause in each of the four competitions.
As it stands it is Liverpool who represent England in this years final, they are fresh unlike Manchester United and injury free unlike Chelsea for the simple reason they have treated the Premiership as pre-season games.
This isn’t new in 2005 they did the same thing and won in Istanbul, and last year an early exit at the hands of Benfica prompted them to turn their attentions to the FA Cup.
Now if I were a Liverpool season ticket holder, I wouldnt be too impressed at the fact the team treat the Premiership as a Warm up, friendly or pre season training rather than an actual competition.
Being an Englishman I would like to see Liverpool bring back the European Cup but the fact they have held back all season for this one competition stains their success and in many other people’s eyes also.
In my opinion UEFA should elect to reduce the number of teams entering the Champions League and also as the name sugguests when was the last time Liverpool were indeed League Champions?
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What a shame that supporters of other teams can’t recognise Liverpool’s achievement but instead try to belittle it to make up for there own teams inadequacies.
Bitter and just a little bit sad.
Ah well…Last time we were lucky. This time we devalued every other competition just to give ourselves an opportunity in this which I suppose will devalue the actual achievement if we win it…..sigh.
You felt the need to regurgitate Mourinhos claims and add your own little slant because???????
Come on at least try to be a little creative.
The season started badly and had ground to a halt by christmas. We were still in the CL. I’d call it common sense to put more emphasis on the CL.
This is so sad to read.
Interesting way of looking at it. By the way which competition were United concentrating on in 2005. As for the champions League, I agree, only one representative from each country should be allowed, where did United finish in order to qualify 1998-99 ????????
Whilst you may have a point, LFC only had one competition to play for in 2007, but more interestingly is both Mourinho & Ferguson both proclaim it was the number of fronts they compete on hampered that them in the UCL AFTER being eliminated, unlike Benitez who recognised this back in 2005 !!!!!!!
YNWA
ummm man u finished 2nd :S lol but yeah i see where your coming from finishing 2nd and getting into europe via qualify should not be on. lmao! and great one saying what were united concentrating on in 2005, it must be hard liverpool not being league champions for years upon years now. saying tht i hope they actually win tonight for the sake of english football, cudnt really see many liverfool fans supporting man u if they got to the final.
Injury free!!! What about Garcia, Kewell, Zenden, Sissoko, Gonzalez…. Does all this seem injury free to you?
Pitiful, unoriginal and p*ss weak stuff.
As well as Man Utd ‘not deserving’ to be in the Champions League final in 1999, by “Jonesy”’s same tragic logic let’s not forget that the same applies to Arsenal and their appearance in the final last year.
The competition has been in its more or less its present form for years and years and everyone knows the rules before the first qualifier kicked off. Despite this, isn’t it odd how you only get the concerted “they’re not even the champions” whinging once Man Utd/Chelsea have gone out.
Can anyone else smell hypocrisy with a hint of sour grapes?
People writing this stuff should be made to reveal the team they support and their (mental) age.
its might be sad but its true. liverpool just cant compete for the premiership.instead they concentrate on cups. hopefully tht will change tho.
After 17 years of not winning it we still haven’t been caught. Piss poor effort by everyone else methinks.
Come to think of it barring the FA cup we have won every trophy available today more than any other English team and we’ve been piss poor for near 2 decades now..by our own ridiculously high standards of course.
i fink that its a shame to belittle any acheivement of this standard. what if people said united just threw away the caring cup 2 concentrate on the league. so what. watford went 2 the semi of the fa cup wen feilding reserves wud mayb have given them a beta chance of survival? liverpool feilded weaker sides 2wards the end of the season, yes, but not so that they wud lose they were strong sides just not there stongest, most sides wud love bellamy kewell macherano hyypia dudek and pennant. they stil battered fulham but got done by a sucker punch at the end. arsenals reserves got 2 the carling cup final and were praised but had they gone out wenger wud have been told he was belittling the competion. and with all the talk of a summer clearout it seems 2 make sense to actually play the players who are playing 4 there future instead of just saying u and u aint good enough off u go.
gerrard to win milan 2nd and liverpool 3rd 4 2nyt. o and im an arsenal fan and i no this is now off topic but steven gerrard is the best player in the world by a long long way.
to me if you dont have a good midfield in europe its very hard to win it.
As expected, Liverufuck is a piece of ’shit hanging from a stick’. Rafa benitez is a resourceful manager who is nothing but a fluke. I have already said so, he grinds out some fluke results on a 100 century ago catenaccio tactics.
Liverpool are a very poor team and a very fluke and lucky team. Compare them with Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Everton. You cannot help notice how pathetic they are.
They will never win the premiershit in recent times & when exactly were they hot shits in Champions league???
Last time they won before 2005 was 21 years ago on PENALTIES, with a fluke comeback. ANywya, if a team is a great team, why make a comeback in the first place????
Face it folks, livershit or fuckpool is a piece of shit that hangs from a stick and if u have shit in your head, u see them as some kind of champion in the world game.
The last time Liverpool won it, the FA had to change the rules to incorporate them in the competition because of poor league form saw them finish below the qualification places.
I for one that time felt Liverpool should be back in the competition the following year as any team that wins a competition should have the right to compete to retain it.
I dont understand why people are mentioning 1998 - 1999 and Manchester United, they finished 2nd to qualify but they competed against arsenal for the league that season.
I am a Manchester United fan, as someone asked me to reveal in a post, I go to games and reserve matches, I think Liverpool have some good up and coming players.
Finally commiserations to Liverpool and their fans in last nights final. Better luck next year and hopefully they will be competing against us for the League too! I was rooting for Liverpool as my priorities are Man Utd then the NW and then England.
Doesn’t matter that you competed in the league, the issue still remains. You didn’t enter the Champions League competition as champions which is the same charge as that levelled at Liverpool = hypocrisy.
The point im making is sheerly constructive,
ok you compare players from our 1999 european cup win to players who played last night for liverpool or when you won it in 2005 and see how many league games each played.
then you will see my point.
farish, the writer meant that Garcia, Kewell, Zenden, Sissoko, Gonzalez is nothing compared to chelsea’s..
cech, cuducini, terry, carvalho, essien, cole, bridge, mikel, ballack, j. cole, robben, drogba, kalou, shevchenko who were all out for 2 games or more. we even had some long term injuries to important people like cech, cuducini, essien, terry, carvalho, ballack, j. cole and shevchenko
i thing ,liverpool doesn’t deserved even a semifinal.
2:2 with barcelona, 1:1 whith chelsea.
no no , i thing liverpool havent so good player to win champions league.
barcelona have.
WELL LIVERPOOL COACH IS TRYIN BUT DIS TIME U NEED PLAYERS C RONALDO KAKA RONALDINHO LEHMAN TOHELP WIN D CHAMPIONSHIP CUP
WELL COACH U ARE TRYIN U NEED PLAYER LIKE C RONALDO MALDINI AND KAKA 2WIN D CHAMPIONSHIP CUP