![Post Post](https://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/styles/lfc/imageset/icon_post_target.gif)
Posted:
Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:56 am
by stmichael
It's nights like last night which just reaffirm why we all love football.
I thought we were superb. I don't care how poor Real were. I haven't seen us pass the ball which such conviction for a long long time. And even without the ball we worked our socks off to get it back and forced them onto the back foot.
It was a delight to see us go for it from the off aswell. Why don't we approach Premiership games in the same manner. I was on here yesterday saying that I hoped we didn't sit on what we had and be cautious. I said I wanted a Juventus 2005 type display and we weren't far off. But for Casillas it would have been over inside the first ten minutes. He was the only player of theirs to come out with any credit.
Great to see the old Torres back aswell. That was the Torres that we all had the pleasure of watching last season. He was immense.
![Post Post](https://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/styles/lfc/imageset/icon_post_target.gif)
Posted:
Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:10 pm
by Ace Ventura
I have been critical of Rafa of late, and i can come on today and give him and the team all the praise they deserve.
It was simply fantastic, the best performance of the season, the tempo we played at just amazed me and left madrid in a spin, they had no answer and but for Casillas it would have been about 6.
That is the most proud i have been of the players and the manager in a long long time.
Anyone who finds negatives after that should really try and let themselves go a bit, thats what football is about.
We were massively entertained last night and over two legs against one of the biggest names in world football we produced flawless football.
Tactical masterstrokes again in europe from Rafa, credit where it is due, he is well and truly the man in europe.
![Post Post](https://www.liverpoolfc-newkit.co.uk/styles/lfc/imageset/icon_post_target.gif)
Posted:
Wed Mar 11, 2009 12:23 pm
by Ciggy
Pulverised. There is no other word for it. Fittingly, for a team nicknamed The Meringues (Los Merengues), Real Madrid were splattered and dispersed over a wide area of Anfield in the manner of an airy fairy dessert.
One that has been run over by a steamroller. Then another one. Then a herd of rampaging elephants. Driving more steamrollers.
The difficulty here is to explain the paucity of Madrid’s resistance while doing justice to Liverpool’s performance.
They were magnificent, arguably as great as they have been in Europe under manager Rafael Benitez, and that is saying something.
Better than the second half in Istanbul? Most definitely. In the end it probably did not matter that Madrid were bad because, even had they been good, they would not have lived with Liverpool in this form.
There was no contest here, no brave fightback, because Liverpool did not allow it. They went at Madrid from the first whistle with the verve and ambition of a team chasing a game, not defending a first-leg advantage.
The four-goal scoreline flatters Madrid, not Liverpool, and at least the Anfield regulars now know why a goalkeeper they prize so highly, Jose Reina, cannot force his way into Spain’s team. Iker Casillas, the Madrid goalkeeper, was outstanding. Without him, this could have been the most amazing result in the history of European competition.
Instead, when Andrea Dossena added the fourth from Javier Mascherano’s cross after 88 minutes, it merely became one of them. Here were two clubs with legendary status in Europe, but only one that justified the reputation. Real Madrid waved a white flag of surrender so early that Benitez’s glorious triumph was almost an anti-climax.
In the Bernabeu he had to work for victory, leaving it late, against the odds; at Anfield, Liverpool were playing exhibition football long before Frank De Bleeckere, the referee, put a stop to proceedings.
Madrid were a force in nothing but name and Benitez may have yearned for more of a challenge. He could not have hoped for a better performance, though. He joked on the eve of the game that he might even smile if his team went 5-0 up, and they went damn close to making him happy.
As ever, the Champions League brought the very best out of his players, and his stars, Fernando Torres and Steven Gerrard, were outstanding.
It was Torres who set the tone, though, the way he took the game to Madrid being the catalyst for a high-tempo performance that must surely be the benchmark for any team with ambitions to lift the Champions League trophy this season; or, in one case, retain it.