Midweek round up

Liverpool are once again made of win. They won 1-0 last night, booking their place in the knockout stages of the Champions League in doing so. They were playing a Marseille side who had beaten them in the competition last season, but there was to be no repeats of last season. The Liverpool team was arguably the strongest starting 11 available to Rafa B, and their class showed through.

The first half was a much better performance from them, Steven Gerrard scoring from a Xabi Alonso cross to put them 1-0 up. It was his 5th goal in the competition so far, equalling Leo Messi's tally. It also helped settle Liverpool's nerves, that goal essentially putting them through to the knockout stages. There were other chances, and Pepe Reina was rarely called into action.

The second half proved a bit more of a contest, Marseille coming back into the game a little more and enjoying more of the possession. The win was later overshadowed by news of injuries to Fernando Torres and Fabio Aurelio, both players set to be on the sidelines for at least 2 weeks. Not only this, but Liverpool's job is still not done. If they want to have a more realistic prospect of progressing further into the competition, they need to finish first in the group to avoid the likes of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter Milan.

Much of the build up to the Valencia game was centered around comments published on the Rosenborg official site (see below post for evidence) and the team would have been even more motivated than usual to prove a point and walk away with a win. They'd already stated that they were not playing for revenge, they just wanted to get the three points.

They were 1-0 up midway through the first half, and basically controlling the game. Rosenborg clearly don't know how to play football, because they were kicking Valencia players, but not the ball. Renan got kicked in the head, but he was ok. Seriously, who let these animals near the beautiful game? Anyway, the first half finished 1-0, and aside from the goal, other things that made me happy were seeing Dahveed all wrapped up on the bench and Mata's bum. Things that made me sad included a perfectly good goal being disallowed for offside. Again. Poor Mata.

Not to be denied though, Pablo scored an absolute stunner of a goal to put Valencia 2-0 up, and after that, goals from Baraja and Joaquin completed the rout, 4-0 the final score. So maybe Rosenborg regret what they did, but you can bet it's because it only seemed to motivate Valencia to play better. They're back to the convincing displays from the start of the season, scoring goals for fun. They did themselves and the fans proud.

At the end of the game, the Rosenborg players had the cheek to ask the Valencia boys for their shirts. It that was me, I'd be ashamed to face them, never mind ask for their shirts. If I was a Valencia player, I would tell them to go fuck themselves. Still, it was a comprehensive win, and a well deserved one at that, they dominated play from start to finish.Eat shit Rosenborg, step down and let the big boys show you how it's done. Not bad for a bunch of 'coward fags' huh?