A night of English dreams and Roman nightmares…plus today’s game

By: Nathan | April 11th, 2007

I think Fergie summed it up best when he simply stated, “Our best ever.” And let me state for the record I am always in the Italian camps, this game makes me sick to my stomach to think and write about, yet it is forever burned into my Tivo as a game my children watch as part of their beautiful game education. The performance ManU put forth last night has to rank as one of the all-time performances in the history of the Champions League. Not only did they need to overcome a 2-1deficit, but were without 2 key starters in their squad, Scholes and Vidic. This game was Red Devil football at it’s best; hard working, precise and relentless. Starting Smith up-front (not even on my radar with limited action this season) was a masterstroke. The former Leeds frontman was given a rare chance to not only play, but play in his preferred attacking position. His passion and drive resulted in a typical Smith evening, a goal and a yellow card, probably a perfect night by his standards. But the night has to be typified by Carrick, a player who has dipped in an out of the shadows, relegated to quotes from teammates and coaches about his value in the squad, but rarely doing more than marshalling the ball from defense to attack. While he provided this with aplomb on the evening, his 2 goals characterized the perfection that ManU was putting forward. On and empty training pitch the placement of those goals would be hard to replicate, on this evening it seemed mandatory to let’em rip. There was a feeling in the air after the Smith goal (second one), that the night was special. By the end of the nightFergie’s smile and simple statement were all that were needed to sum up a night of nights at Old Trafford. I could go on, but I’m feeling queezy….

As for today’s games – Liverpool vs. PSV warrants no preview – Koeman is even bringing a bunch of teenagers fro some experience.

AC Milan vs. Bayern Munich @ Allianz Arena - Live on ESPN2 @2:30p ET
After seeing the power of homefield in Manchester, I was worried for Milan, then Chelsea took out Valenica in an absolute cauldron at the Mestalla, so where are we now? Back to sqaure one. Bayern have the lift of the crowd and the return of Kahn. Other news and notes:
*With age brings patience to Maldini…he urges Milan to keep it tranquilo
*Looks like a Pippo sighting tonight, he has some magic ways on big stages…
*A good breakdown of the teams by former manager of both Trapattoni (I certainly don’t miss him with the Azzurri).

Milan needs to score early for both the tie and their own mentality. 2-1 Milan on the road and onto Old Trafford.

oh and I realize my poo-pooing of 3 English teams in the semi’s didn’t really work out……well done Engerland, well done.