Inter Milan Vs Liverpool, Review and Reaction

By: Rob | March 12th, 2008

And so it was, that there were 4 English sides in the Champions League, and just one Spanish, and one Italian. Last night Liverpool went to the San Siro and won, beating an Inter side that despite recent form, is dominating Serie A. Highlights here.

Torres scores against INter

Inter 0 (0) – (3) 1 Liverpool

Before the first leg this was one of the big ties, if not the biggest tie. The first leg finished 2-0 to Liverpool after a late late show from Kuyt and Gerrard. Inter went into this game knowing they needed a 1965 type performance just to get through to the next round – and after Calciopoli-led dominance of Serie A, they needed to prove themselves on the European stage.

Inter started out brightly, Liverpool looking orginised – but not threatning. The first obvious thing was that newly-mustachio’d Ibrahimovic was looking fired up for this game (he still occasionally looked lazy though) making neat passes and trying to get constantly near the ball. Liverpool knew they just had to nick a one nil and looked patient. Inter missed three good chances in the first half, and Ibro was involved in them all. When he’s in this mood he is an absolute joy to watch – which is often more than you can say about this (any?) Inter side. On half hour he played a pass that beat three defenders and put Cruz one on one with the keeper, Cruz dragged it wide.

Inter’s defence occasionally looked shaky, mostly when they played themselves into trouble. They seemed to be trying to convay an air of confidence that wasn’t exactly there. More than though, they looked unpractised with one another (hardly surprising when Inter’s defence has been that desomated). Inter constantly looked the more dangerous of the two side, Ibro flashing one past the post early in the second half. To be fair, Liverpool had thier chances as well, Cesar had to make a good challenge on Babel, and Kuyt looked fine untill he was asked to shoot.
Figo seemed to spend 80 minutes of the 90 warming up, but came off among rumours he didn’t want to be involved. Inter then went again down to 10 men, again from two yellow cards, not as harshly as the first leg, but probably still undeserved. Patrick Viera had a wonderful chance to score, except he decided he would take 37 touches instead of hitting it first time. He soon got substituted for Pele (shouldn’t a player of Pele’s age be playing for the Other Milan Team? Oh not that Pele. Ok.)

Liverpool had a defensive lapse of thier own, Skrtel giving the ball away to Ibra, who decided to go it alone and blast it at Pepe Reina when Cruz couldn’t find a good enough position 6 yards out. Fernando Torres soon scored the only goal of the game, a brilliant goal in effectively the wrong corner on the turn. Man’s on fire! it did however effectively kill it dead as a contest (Inter needed to get 4 goals in about 20 minutes) and so Mancini put up the white flag – in more ways than one it seems, as he is now leaving to join Chelsea at the end of the seaon (maybe) – and substituted his only attacking threat and Inter surrendered. The last 10 or 15 minutes were an absolute chore to watch, so I shant bore you.

Moment of Truth – Torres goal of course. Killed the game.
Man of the Match. Torres finish was beautiful but the only player I can remember trying to make it a contest was Ibrahimovic, so it really can’t be anyone else.

After the game, the two sets of fans clapped each other apparently, which is lovely to see. Suprised there were any Inter fans left in the stadium though.

And so Liverpool make it a perfect 4 in the Last 8 of the Champions League. Stay tuned for a debate as to whether they should be able to draw English clubs (they can, as it stands, its a completely open draw, friday Noon GMT) and some excited arguing about who would like to get who in the next round.

Untill Then Then.