Paul Doyle
Greece has always been a dangerous place to forget what made you great. Thales the Milesian, for example, was the country's first ever philosopher and found fame by positing that everything is made of water. Oh how he must have been kicking himself in 546BC when, in the middle of a gymnastics contest, he dropped dead of dehydration. Then there was Chrysippus, a celebrated Stoic - who laughed himself to death.
It's tempting but wrong to add Rafa Benitez to the list. His success at Liverpool has been based above all on defence, yet tonight he adopted a vigorous attacking formation. Liverpool's aggression was evident from the very first minute, when four raiders in Red romped into the Milan box, only for their ardour to droop when Steven Gerrard overhit his cross to Jermaine Pennant, who had fizzed in free at the back post. But the intent was clear. And correct.
Manifestly, attack is the best form of defence against this Milan side - by pressing high up the pitch, Liverpool cut off the supply not just to Kaka and Clarence Seedorf but also to Andrea Pirlo, the principal conduit from back to front. Of course, Benitez has always known this - far from abandoning his previous beliefs, tonight he in fact reverted to the strategy he'd begun with in Istanbul - and it worked insofar as it meant that Liverpool lorded it over their opponents in the first half. The only reason their tactics didn't bring triumph is that, while the shape and idea were sound, the personnel were inadequate.
If Jermaine Pennant and Bolo Zenden were postmen in your district, you'd wake up every morning to find parcels in your shrubbery and letters strewn all over your lawn: that's how bad their delivery is. Both had ample opportunity in the first half to exploit Milan's narrowness, but both failed miserably to turn time and space into tangible success, their crosses either too wild or too feeble.
Zenden toddled about in particularly ineffective fashion, as he did against Chelsea in the semi-finals and, indeed, for most of his strange career at the top level. Harry Kewell may have been a shock inclusion two years ago when he was thrust into the starting line-up after almost six months out through a mysterious injury, but he should have started tonight. Not 'in the hole' behind the lone striker, which is where he was deployed in 2005 and where Gerrard thrived tonight, but on the wing in place of Zenden. Because when he's at his best, Kewell is faster, more precise and more menacing than Zenden has ever been or will ever be. If he was close enough to his best to be on the bench, then he should have been in the first XI. If not, he shouldn't have been on the bench.
If those options sound embarrassingly limited, then it's because Benitez has not bought better ones.
Speaking of which: Zenden wasn't the only defective Dutchman on the pitch. Dirk Kuyt is simply not a Champions League class player, nor an improvement on the people he replaced. He may be more disciplined than Milan Baros - a trait that will always endear him to a technocrat like Benitez - but his touch and finishing is equally shoddy, and he doesn't have the pace of Djibril Cissé. Peter Crouch has failings too, but he would have been harder for Milan to handle, notably from set-pieces, at which Milan's vulnerability had previously been exposed in this competition by Celtic's Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Bayern Munich's Daniel van Buyten. And Crouch is more than just an aerial nuisance, of course, he's also deft of touch. He would have been a far more reliable foil for the game Gerrard.
Both Kewell and Crouch were eventually introduced, but at a time when Milan had already stolen a lead and could therefore sit back, squeezing the space that had hitherto existed and springing forward in speedy spurts. Liverpool, meanwhile, became rudderless in their desperation and were forced to sacrifice Javier Mascherano - the holding player they'd missed so glaringly two years ago until Dietmar Hamann's belated entry; that gave Kaka the room he'd previously been denied, and he duly released Inzaghi for the game's killer goal.
Kuyt's 88th-minute goal, his first in the tournament, was more than mere testament to Liverpool's wonderful fighting spirit - it was also an ironic way of signalling their shortcomings. With the backing of Liverpool's new American owners, Benitez will have more money than ever before at his disposal: but he must spend the big bucks better than he has spent the relatively small ones so far. He is brilliant at shaping a team. Now he must prove he can staff one.Guardian Unlimited
*Disclaimer - Views expressed within this story are not necessarily the views of this Blog
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