(Sorry about the headline!)
Ah, the 2006 FA Cup Final, a great football match, certainly, enjoyable, no.
As a Liverpool fan I don’t think I enjoyed a single minute.
From the clumsy error ridden first twenty minutes, to the even clumsier og on 22 and goalkeeping spill on 28, I was a wreck.
Brief hope in the following few minutes with Crouchinho’s (wrongly) disallowed goal, and Cisse’s excellent volleyed finish from Stevie G’s pass. Relief at being back in the game, yes… enjoyment, no.
The second half continued in the same vein, Liverpool still weren’t convincing (and Pepe made amends for his earlier mistake almost immediately), their passing sloppy, their play unbalanced, Harry Kewell injuring himself in the tunnel! But, almost inspite of that, a mis-worked freekick fell to Stevie to thump home. For the first time in the match a smile was starting to work its way onto my face, surely Liverpool, with their big match experience and superior players could take the game by the scruff of the neck? What d’ya mean NO!
Almost immediately, West Ham picked up their play again, and although I’ll be decrying Konchesky as a lucky son-of-a-female terrier for many a year, I couldn’t argue with the Hammers’ lead. Liverpool took control of the ball, but couldn’t work their way behind a resolute defence. Alonso went off injured on 67, Cisse had been a passenger for a while, but the cramp was getting worse, and oh horror of horrors, Gerrard was visibly struggling too (Mottie an co worrying about the World Cup, my worries were far more pressing). Half-arsed freekick followed sloppy pass and the minutes were ticking away. I had lost all hope when the board came out saying four more minutes, I thought, “**** it ref, put us out of our misery, we’re never going to score!”
Then, just as I’d strung together, what I thought, was one of the most honest appraisals of a Liverpool performance that I’ve ever given, a thunderbolt, from 35 yards, the previously struggling Gerrard once again single handedly rescued a beaten Liverpool. The grin across my face could probably be seen from space, the cries of joy, heard in New Zealand, the stamps of my feet felt in the soul of every football fan.
But, once again, the realisation, Liverpool have about eight fit players, West Ham had been seemingly largely unaffected by the cramp that had decimated my beloved Reds. And so to extra-time, I clearly hadn’t read the West Ham problems that well, Harewood and Reo-Coker joined Cisse, Riise, Gerrard and Sissoko on the ground as the half hour passed by. Liverpool however seemed to be taking the game at last, Riise’s effort passing agonisingly over the cross-bar, Sami Hyypia drove just wide from the edge of the box after a neat turn (now, that would have been a story), and Jan Kromkamp was proving an effective running option down the right-hand side (though his final delivery was generally shocking).
The extra minutes ticked on, but West Ham weren’t for letting this one go easily, the always threatening Israeli, Benayoun, continued to cause beads of sweat on my brow, and then with seconds remaining Harewood sent an effort goalwards, “bugger!” my brain thought out loud. But, as with Istanbul last year, a ‘keeper was to perform late miracles to take the game to penalties.
At last I was confident, and I quote from an article I wrote for this very site back in October:
“Well, I?ve already ruled out the Premiership (let Chelsea have it, then they?ll only be fifteen behind the mighty Reds), so that leaves the Champions League, FA Cup or the thingy sponsored League Cup, and after last May, I?m confident we can beat anybody on penalties!”
The query over who was going to be fit enough to actually take a kick didn’t seem to matter, the heroes who stepped, all eight of them, and the two goalkeepers knew what was at stake. It was all about hitting a ball hard and accurately in a manner which would have phased none of them in training, but they found themselves exhausted and with thirty-odd thousand fans baying for them to miss the target… none of them did. It was down to the ‘keepers. Reina saved brilliantly from Zamora’s well struck penalty; Hislop saved easily from Hyypia’s tame effort; Konchesky went for power down the middle, but didn’t put any height on it and the ball struck Reina’s trailing legs; Anton Ferdinand stepped up, a chorus of boos ringing in his ears, but once again Reina guesses right, and his save brought the celebrations of another penalty shoot-out victory for Liverpool (their eighth in nine attempts), and more importantly the FA Cup back to Anfield for a seventh time.
At last I could relax, smile and enjoy a drink, with the old adage, ?I?d rather be lucky than good? swilling round my stress addled brain!
As a footnote, I?ve heard a lot of complaints about the goalkeepers moving before the penalties were struck. Certainly, I was too wrapped up in the moment to notice any such impropriety, but I have since sought out any videos of the penalties that I can find online. Unfortunately I can only find the winning save by Reina from Ferdinand?s penalty, and whilst Reina moves along the line, it seems he only leaves it and moves forward as the ball is struck, which is legal. I await a closer examination, and certainly in last years Champions [sic] League Final shoot-out, these rules were clearly flouted by both ?keepers.
