Liverpool FC Forum

by **Bruno Zidane!** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:30 am

Think the topic says it all this is just my thanks to Rafa for giving us something we havent achieved in 20 years a champions league semi final. I knew this season would have plenty of ups and downs but i never thought i would see us hit these heights so soon with players who are new, young and some who werent good enough under the old management, Rafa has done a job i dont think any manager in the world could have managed. There is nothing but great times ahead for this Liverpool side and dont we just know it........and a special mention to the rest of the squad and coaches who have made this possible and have achieved the impossible in the recovery of cisse and alonso, i think it just shows that in these two weve bought players with a attitude which u dont often get these days with players and thats commitment, the fact that cisse has been pestering rafa for a game since he started kicking a ball makes me smile even more this morning. Are team is coming together as one and i cant understand anyone who would not want to be at Liverpool over the years to come.

THANKS RAFA AND THE BOYS......BRING ON THE CHELSEA SCUM!

by **woof woof !** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:29 am

Certainly when it comes to Euro nights Rafa is "THE MAN " ,
The squad is getting stronger as players return to fitness ,can't wait to stick it to the Chelsea shi'te, some of them are going on about having won against us three times ,conviniently forgetting on each occaision it was only by the odd goal and with the help of the officials and some outrageous luck :angry:

Can't wait to stick it to them this time .

by **Nando** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:43 am

this is a turning point in our season and honestly i think this is the most important period of our time as a premiership football team, SEMI FINALS OF CHAMPIONS LEAGUE BABYYYY! this is where we belong we didnt look out of place the occasion didnt get to us, we werent overawed by some of the biggest talents in europe, with gerrard, cisse, xabi, kewell hamann all available and smicer back we gonna have a lot more options for the chelsea game and a decent subs bench!! hyypia carra and biscan performed immensely but honourable credit should go to xabi alonso, RVN has been a pansy since hes been back but xabi was thrown into the deep end and showed his true class
YNWA

by **rafasredmen** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:50 am

Just a quick thought about last night.If one year ago somebody would have said that we would be in the champions league semi final after knocking out Juve with a team minus Owen,Gerrard, Hamann and Kewell.A team including Traore,Biscan and Smicer a midfielder who been injured for 4 months and a striker for 6 months a removal of rose tinted glasses would have been recommended.Thanks to Rafa and all the lads for showing us what a wonderful feeling it is to be a Liverpool supporter, bring on the Chelski sh**e.

by **Nando** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 11:57 am

what a 1st post mate!! well done couldnt have put it better myself, its great seeing last years uefa cup and champions league winning managers in the semis after pitting their wits against each other in the carling cup and 2 league matches, its great for premiership football

by **woof woof !** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:12 pm

rafasredmen wrote:.If one year ago somebody would have said that we would be in the champions league semi final after knocking out Juve with a team minus Owen,Gerrard, Hamann and Kewell.A team including Traore,Biscan and Smicer a midfielder who been injured for 4 months and a striker for 6 months a removal of rose tinted glasses would have been recommended.

Spot on mate , It's the kind of thing you usually only see in the movies .

by **mike72** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:15 pm

Spot on....what Rafa has achieved is the work of a genius. We were in the toughest first round group and we came through that, and we've beaten Leverkusen and Juventus. While Leverkusen look to be a team on the slide, Juve are one of the best teams in Europe....no argument! And he did it with all the injuries, and players made players like Biscan, Traore, Finnan, Riise and Smicer look world class, when they didn't even look Premiership quality last season. Once he gets to grips with the Premiership and gets his hands on some more money to spend in the summer, we are gonna be unstoppable!!

by **azriahmad** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:53 pm

Rafa Benithez is a brilliant coach, but then so is Jose Maurinho. The main difference is that Rafa works with no fuss, never openly ciritisizing one sigle player if the team loses or concedes goals unnecessarily. Only when he lost his patience after the Birmingham games did he give a public shelling, but then to all of his players in general but it was done very mildly.

I hope he has better luck with getting his type of players and ideas across from next season onwards and take us to the summit of the EPL.

by **Igor Zidane** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:03 pm

azriahmad wrote:Rafa Benithez is a brilliant coach, but then so is Jose Maurinho. The main difference is that Rafa works with no fuss, never openly ciritisizing one sigle player if the team loses or concedes goals unnecessarily. Only when he lost his patience after the Birmingham games did he give a public shelling, but then to all of his players in general but it was done very mildly.

I hope he has better luck with getting his type of players and ideas across from next season onwards and take us to the summit of the EPL.

maureen is always looking for rhe limelight he takes all the praise away from his team ,he's just one arrogant tw@t who has his teams cheating and diving and playing dirty to win, does anyone remember how porto played last year ,dirty b@stards ,chelski are the same this year ,just ask alonso about lampards challenge,makes me want to puke all this maureen is god ******, i could manage chelski with the squad he's got.Bring em on and well show what true class is .

by **taff** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:38 pm

I could go on for days about how lucky we are to have him. He doesnt get involved with the childish spats other managers seem to relish. We have a tough determined manager who just gets on with it and has won our hearts

He just stays calm and says great things. I loved it in his interview last night when asked about the Baros miss he just shrugged but was happy that the danger of that happening meant Juve stayed in defensive mode. I think its no wonder he gets the best out of players

Its frightening what this guy could achieve, Im looking forward to winning the CL and watching RB turn down the Russians ill gotten gains

by **115-1073096938** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:08 pm

I cried last night, i was made up.

But today i woke upto the reality. We haven't won anything yet. Stop building him up just to shoot him down if things don't go to plan in the next three years.

It was exactly the same under Houllier, just the start, brilliant, genius blah ****** blah. 2 bad years then bang everyone turns on him. Show a bit of loyalty and let the man get on with hhis job. Stop the fickleness.

by **PhiLFC** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 2:09 pm

rafasredmen wrote:Just a quick thought about last night.If one year ago somebody would have said that we would be in the champions league semi final after knocking out Juve with a team minus Owen,Gerrard, Hamann and Kewell.A team including Traore,Biscan and Smicer a midfielder who been injured for 4 months and a striker for 6 months a removal of rose tinted glasses would have been recommended.Thanks to Rafa and all the lads for showing us what a wonderful feeling it is to be a Liverpool supporter, bring on the Chelski sh**e.

I totally agree but then I got thinking about the bluenoses thinking a similar thing - if you know what I mean - no spudface or Graveson but in a CL position with a just a few games to go

by **Bruno Zidane!** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:33 pm

Thanks Stu lad i was getting carried away after all we have only beat Juventus and through to the champions league semi final. Im not being fickle Stu, far from it in fact we all remember what happened under Houllier and the false dawn which was cast over us again but you cant help me for getting a little bit carried away fella, were 3 games away from the european cup for christs sake! Also i seriously am not building him up to knock him down cos i could never say a bad thing about Rafa even if things do go pear shaped (Which they wont!) ive got to much respect for the man.......I just cant wait for the game against spurs now the atmosphere is gonna be great and i hope we can bag all 3 points as well........but if we dont Rafa is the sh!ttest manager we have ever had and i hope he gets the sack!!!!!

by **stmichael** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 3:48 pm

I have to say that tactically we were perfect. I hope that some of you guys will watch that thing again as well, because now that you can see it without a possible heartattack, you´ll see how organized we actually were.

Watch our flanks for instance. Every time Camoranesi or Zambrotta tried to make those ever-so-dangerous quick runs (they are elite in those), we had immediately one guy in front of them and one guy behind that first one to give cover. The result was that Zamb/Cam had to pass back, then they tried to switch sides and it was the same thing again. We basically nullified their most dangerous element with second-string players and they had no crosses. I think there was just one time when Zambrotta was able to evade our strong tactic and they almost scored from that cross (Zlatan´s shot which went over the bar)

Naturally there was no way to go through the middle. And those long hoofs were easily collected by Sami.

This performance reminds me of the game that we played against Barcelona in UEFA-cup (0-0 Nou Camp) with the exception that we had a strong defence AND chances for goals.

I wish I had pics from those situations so that you could see it with your own eyes.

Rafa Benitez, you are the man! Man with the bloody mastermind. Im actually a bit horrified, because with more skilled players this man is simply going to vanquish all opposition. In premiership and in Europe.

by **zarababe** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 9:34 pm

.. Bemitez has a pedigree.. unlike Huoullier in one of the toighest leagues he proved himself..

Xabi Alonso's interview says what the professional think... read and take note ppl:

Liverpool.tv

"Following Liverpool's brilliant performance in Turin last night we spoke to Spanish star Xabi Alonso at Melwood about the Reds' march into the last four of the Champions League.
Liverpoolfc.tv: Xabi, what's the mood in the camp like today after last night's heroics in Italy?

Xabi Alonso: We're obviously all very happy to have reached the semi-final and I think we now have a great chance of reaching the final.
I think we produced a very intelligent performance. We knew we would have to control them and we did that well because they only had a couple of chances. Maybe we could have done better going forward but we did create a good chance for Milan Baros.

How much did you enjoy the celebrations after the final whistle?

Obviously it was a very special moment but we have to remember that we haven't won anything yet. We enjoyed celebrating a good result with our supporters but there is still a lot of work to do before we can really celebrate.
We need to forget about Juventus now and concentrate on the game against Tottenham on Saturday because that is going to be another very important game.

It almost seemed as though you were comfortable during the game against a high quality Juventus line-up.

They played a lot of long balls into our area and then tried to win the second balls. But we knew what we needed to do and how to stop them causing us too many problems and I think our performance over the 90 minutes was very clever. We controlled them very well.

How much credit should the manager take for the victory because of his tactical plan in Italy?

His role was very important. He prepared for the game very thoroughly, he knew exactly what Juventus were going to do and how we needed to play to stop them doing what they wanted. Before the game he told us what was required and I think every player turned in a good performance.
Being manager of Liverpool brings a huge responsibility but already he has done great things in his first season. We are only going to improve from here.

How highly do you rate him as a manager?

He's very, very good. We work very hard every day in training, we prepare properly for all the games and he is excellent tactically. He had a lot of success with Valencia and I am sure he will do very well with Liverpool.

Do you feel there are signs now that the players are taking on board his ideas for how he wants his team to play?

We are improving all the time and I also think we are learning from the mistakes we have made this season. This is the first season at Liverpool for a lot of players, the manager and his staff so people just need to be patient. We are doing well at the moment but remember we are still learning.

You play Tottenham this weekend but all the fans are already looking forward to the Chelsea semi-final..

I can understand why the supporters are so excited about the Chelsea games but we have to keep our focus and concentrate on the Premier League. We have to play big games against Tottenham, Portsmouth and Crystal Palace before the semi-final and we need to take as many points as possible from the three matches.

Can you beat Chelsea over the two legs?

Yes, I know we can. It's going to be very tough but we can do it. The games against them this season have been very close but we have lost all of them. If we play as well as we can over the two legs, and cut out the mistakes, then we can create chances and win the tie.

Following last night's result do you think the rest of Europe is once again taking notice of Liverpool?

Maybe, but the most important thing is to stay focused on ourselves and not to worry or think about what people might be saying. If we keep doing things properly and keep working hard with a clear idea of what wewant to achieve then we will be successful.

How important is it now to maintain your standards against Spurs at the weekend?

We often have a dip in form after Champions League games but we know we can't afford to let that happen this weekend. It's always difficult after a big European game because the players get tired, but we're confident we can perform well on Saturday and take the three points.

On a personal level, how pleased were you to complete all 90 minutes in Turin?

Obviously I'm very pleased because it's great to be back playing in the first team. It was good to be back in a game of such intensity. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to complete the 90 minutes but when I got a bit tired late on I started playing more with my brain rather than making unnecessary runs.

How pleased are you to see Djibril Cisse back in action as well?

I am so happy for him. I think his recovery has been nothing short of amazing. He had such a bad injury but he is back now and everyone at the club is delighted for him.
We are getting some players back to full fitness now at just the right time of the season. We all believe that this could end up being a very good season for us. "

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