Deadly Deivid & Liverpool’s Luck in London

Fener­bahçe con­tin­ued to be the sur­prise pack­age of this Cham­pi­ons League sea­son by com­ing back from a goal down to beat Chelsea 2–1 on Wednes­day. The atmos­phere at the Sükrü Saraçoglu Sta­dium was elec­tric as always though the home fans were stunned early on when Chelsea were gifted the lead.

It appeared that Fener­bahçe man­ager Zico had instructed his full-backs to push for­ward as much as pos­si­ble. How­ever, this left Flo­rent Mal­ouda and Joe Cole too much space on the flanks in the early stages and this played a big part in Chelsea’s early dom­i­nance of the match.

An attempted cut­back by Flo­rent Mal­ouda was turned into his own goal by Deivid. Min­utes later, Michael Essien, start­ing at right-back for Chelsea, pow­ered for­ward and skimmed a shot off the cross­bar. The chances kept com­ing for Chelsea but Volkan Demirel, who was both goat and hero in the last round, made some key saves to keep the score close.

The match turned when Zico decided to shift things and bring on another striker to help Kez­man up front. The Turk­ish side lev­elled when London-born Colin Kazim-Richards (known as Kaz?m Kaz?m in Turkey) smashed home Mehmet Aurelio’s pass over the top of the Chelsea defence. The for­mer Sheffield United for­ward, who also had stints at Bury and Brighton, came on for U?ur Boral and gave his side an injec­tion of pace and sup­plied some much-needed energy up front. Zico would later replace Kez­man with Semih ?entürk to keep fresh legs run­ning at the Chelsea defend­ers. ?entürk has been worked into the first team more often since Tun­cay ?anl? was allowed to leave and sign with Middlesbrough.

Fener­bahçe pressed on and found the win­ner in the 81st minute from Deivid who made amends for his ear­lier lapse. From about 30 yards out, he unleashed a per­fect striker into the top cor­ner that Carlo Cud­icini could have done lit­tle about. The crowd unleashed a thun­der­ous roar and one has to won­der if Fener­bahçe can muster the same energy and pas­sion away from home next week. If they can, Chelsea will be knocked out.

In the other quarter-final from Wednes­day, Arse­nal and Liv­er­pool played to a 1–1 draw in a game that offered moments of drama but was often a one-sided match. The early stages of the match, the 200th meet­ing between the old rivals who first met in 1893, were filled with stops and starts, plenty of poor passes and very lit­tle flow.

Arse­nal slowly began to press and Robin van Per­sie had a great chance to put Arse­nal ahead after 20 min­utes when he found him­self in space and onside after elud­ing Sami Hyypia to col­lect a long over-the-top pass from Math­ieu Flamini. Arse­nal took a deserved lead three min­utes later through Ade­bayor. Van Per­sie worked a short cor­ner with Fab­re­gas and crossed for Ade­bayor, who rose to head home, while Sami Hyypia stood and watched the play unfold, leav­ing Reina help­less as the ball hit the back of the net.

As has been the case so many times in the past, Liv­er­pool were inspired by Steven Ger­rard and lev­eled the match with their first chance of the game. Ger­rrard picked up a loose ball on the edge of the Arse­nal area and drib­bled past both Emmanuel Eboué and Kolo Touré before cross­ing low for Dirk Kuyt to bun­dle the ball in.

The sec­ond half was all Arse­nal in another famil­iar dis­play. As so many times in the past, the Gun­ners dom­i­nated pos­ses­sion but were unable to apply the fin­ish­ing touches as Liv­er­pool sat back and absorbed the pres­sure. Liv­er­pool were for­tu­nate twice in the space of five min­utes mid­way through the sec­ond half. Defender Mar­tin Skr­tel cleared an Emmanuel Eboue shot off the line and a shot from Cesc Fab­re­gas hit Arse­nal team mate Nick­las Bendt­ner stand­ing on the Liv­er­pool goal-line though, in fair­ness, Bendt­ner had been ruled off­side so the goal would not have counted anyway.

Liv­er­pool were also lucky to avoid hav­ing a penalty called against them after Alexan­der Hleb appeared to be hauled down inside the penalty area by Dirk Kuyt. Dutch ref­eree Peter Vink appeared to be well-placed to see whether Hleb was impeded by Kuyt and waved away Arsenal’s appeals. Per­son­ally, I felt it could have gone either way. Kuyt did com­mit the foul but Hleb also appeared to embell­ish it which may have actu­ally cost Arse­nal the call though we’ll never know for certain.

The draw (and away goal) gives a slight advan­tage to Liv­er­pool, though Arse­nal will have con­fi­dence after defeat­ing AC Milan com­pre­hen­sively at the San Siro in the last round. Liv­er­pool, given their record against Eng­lish oppo­si­tion at Anfield, will also feel con­fi­dent about their chances but will need to shake off their overly defen­sive pos­ture and not allow Arse­nal to dom­i­nate pos­ses­sion again.

For me, the key play­ers in the match were Javier Mascher­ano and Dirk Kuyt. Mascher­ano deliv­ered 90 min­utes of tire­less ball-winning and did well in dis­trib­ut­ing the ball when Liv­er­pool had pos­ses­sion. Kuyt, as usual, worked his socks off but this time did have some­thing to show for it. Used in more of a shad­ow­ing role to help Jamie Car­ragher keep the Clichy/Hleb combo in check down the left flank, Kuyt man­aged to pop up in the box and score the all-important away goal.

As has been talked about, the two clubs meet in the Eng­lish Pre­mier League this Sat­urdy before resum­ing their Cham­pi­ons League bat­tle on Tues­day. It will prove to be the key week for both these clubs as the CL final in Moscow looms as their last chance for sil­ver­ware this year.