h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I won't be watching the Champions' League Final tonight - Wednesdays is my regular night for playing sport, rather than watching. But if I was watching, I'd be cheering on AC Milan.

Never mind all this "support the English team" nonsense. I'm an Everton fan, and there's no way I'll support Liverpool. Bitter? Possibly? Envious? Certainly.

But it's impossible to be any other way, given the wall-to-wall sycophantic media coverage that Liverpool and their "best fans in the world" get, not to mention the hoardes of glory-hunting part-time fans who seem to seep out of the woodwork on these occasions. Now granted, I'm an armchair footie fan who only goes to see Everton a couple of times a season, but I don't pretend to be anything else. When I was a kid I used to go and watch Everton all across London with my friend and his family, who were all from Liverpool. And last time we won anything (FA Cup, 1995) you would have seen me watching the match on TV as usual, not bedecked in club colours and proclaiming an utter devotion that only comes out when we're winning.

Last time they won it, in Istanbul, the truth of the matter is that AC imploded for a short period of the game, but were, in truth, dominant for the whole first half and looked the most likely to score after it came to 3-3 and throughout extra time. And Liverpool won on penalties. Yet to read the match reports in the English press, you'd think it was some kind of heroic victory. Liverpool didn't win it, AC lost it and then it went to penalties. Think how differently it would have been reported if it had been the other way round.

But as someone said on an Everton forum recently, Liverpool are Satan's own team, and if there's any luck going, they'll get it.

It's a tricky one this one. Which team should I support.

The team owned by the right-wing Italian crook. Or the team that is nice and rested after sending their reserves to the game away at Fulham.

I think on balance I'll go for the criminal. But in an ideal world I would like both teams to lose.

I felt exactly the same way about the FA Cup Final. I know I should dislike Chelsea more, but old habits die very hard indeed.

This is a tricky one. I follow Arsenal, but I quite like Liverpool. On the other hand their Champions League win two years ago was the most outrageous piece of good fortune ever seen at that level, and it was against the same opponents as today. So although I would normally support Liverpool in a match like this, on just this occasion I'm neutral. Enjoy the match!

As a Leeds fan, I'm ambivalent towards both Liverpool and Milan.

As a Mancunian, I'd rather lose a finger than have any Scouse team win anything ever. At the end of the day good teams win leagues, lucky teams win cups. Liverpool got extremely lucky and hopefully it'll even out tonight.

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"It doesn't make sense to hand a [Champion's League] place to a club based on a knockout competition, almost a one-off, when other clubs have shown quality over a full league season to get in the top four."

Liverpool chief executive Rick Parry. That's Liverpool, who qualified for the 2006 Champions League despite finishing outside the top four, after their success in a 'one-off cup'.
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Sometimes Special Dispensation FC are beyond satire....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/funny_old_game/6998720.stm

Sod the big clubs....

Just think *every* fan or pretty much any team would be able to dream not just of Wem-ber-ley but also of the Champions League. if that would not restor the magic of the FA cup I do not know what would. This is a tremendous idea, and I must say hats of to Monseuir Platini.

If a so called "big club" is unable to either finish in the top three or vwin the *worlds* premier knock out cup competition then shucks they dont deserve CL footy.

And besides who but board members of privately listed clubs thinks finishing 4th is an achivement worth rewarding?

The fiasco of yesterday's Merseyside derby just goes to prove once again that Liverpool are Satan's own team....

Steve Me is allowed to talk the referee into sending off Tony Hibbert rather than booking him.....

Dirk Kuyt is apparently exempt from the rules on dangerous play. Getting away with a tackle that was both two-footed and two feet off the ground, and which, had it connected, could have been career threatening. And then has the sheer nerve to claim that he didn't mean it. It was almost as bad as Ben Thatcher's last season, and would have been had his assault landed. How that was not a red card I have no idea. But you can bet that it'll be forgotten by tomorrow....

It's also apparently legal to wrestle with Joleon Lescott in the penalty area. Two clear penalties yesterday - the first was very clear, but could have been missed. The second was clear to everyone in the ground except the ref and the Fat Spanish Waiter who had the nerve to claim that Lescott dived - presumably by wrapping Carragher's arms around his shoulders and throwing himself over him rather than tapping the ball into the net. Even by FSW's standards, that's a new low in classless behaviour.

Will we have the same media calls for an 'apology' that we got after Liverpool were denied a penalty against Chelsea? Will we Falkirk.... because only Liverpool are Special Dispensation FC.

And then Carragher has the nerve to celebrate as if he's just won the world cup when he should have been red carded for a blatant professional foul. He was one of the few Liverpool players I had any respect for - but not any more.

So.... Everton.... two fouls in the area, two penalties, two red cards.
Liverpool.... two clear fouls in the area, one attempted GBH.... result? One yellow card.

One day, and I hope one day soon, the pigeons will come home to roost and Liverpool will be on the receiving end of some similar shocking decisions. But they're Satan's own team, and it'll never, ever happen.....

I would also point out that Hibbert originally fouled Gerrard outside the area, and Gerrard waited until he got into the box before dramatically going to ground.

I wondered if you were going to add to this thread after watching the match yesterday. It was robbery without a gun I must say.

Just after full time I got a text from a Liverpool fan saying "Not sure how Carragher got away with that at the end"

Do you remember the first game of the season, when Gerard conned the referree into giving him a free kick after a fair tackle by Petrov, which he promptly scored? He said afterwards that Villa shouldn't bitch about the free kick as "these things even themselves out".

The following week, when Styles amde his mistake against Liverpool, Gerrard said that it was a disgrace and changed the game.

I too hope that Liverpool get their comeuppance for the injustices of the derby. I doubt they will though.

Didn't Styles get exiled to the Championship for a few games?

What are the odds on Mark Clattenburg getting the same treatment? Pretty much zero.

Yeah but Clattenburg is usually pretty good where IMHO after Mike "chester united" Riley, Styles is the worst ref in the EPL by a country mile....

On that performance, Clattenburg is the new Graham "Liver" Poll.

I was prepared to concede for the sake of argument that Hibbert did foul Gerrard. Even though the first foul (the shirt pull) was outside the area, the referee could legitimately have played advantage or decide it was "six of one" because of Gerrard's arm across Hibbert, which was illegal obstruction.

But a post on an Everton site the other day asked whether Andy Johnson would have been given a penalty in Gerrard's situation. And the answer is almost certainly not.

Interestingly, Clattenburg joined Liverpool on their pre-season Asian tour, and David Jones in the Liverpool Echo sugegsts this may explain his reaction to kuyt's challenge:

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/columnists/2007/10/22/why-the-blues-have-a-right-to-claim-ref-justice-100252-19987225/

I owuld have to disagree about the penalty. It *was* a foul IMHO and under the circumstances it would have been a mistake not to give it. I always think in those sort of situations a Red Card is a bit harsh....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/7056562.stm

Clatters out of next weekend. So there is some payback

Apparently not - he just has a UEFA cup game to referee. Let's just hope that he hasn't, say, gone on a pre-season tour with one of the teams playing in his next game.

To be fair, I am surprised by how seriously the rest of football/the football media have taken the incidents on Saturday. I had thought it would just be brushed under the carpet like the fact that AJ's first penalty against Metalist was not "missed" but wrongly disallowed for encroachment.

I'd be embarrassed if I were a Liverpool fan. I'd be embarrassed to have a captain that tried to get a fellow professional sent off (compare and contrast with Phil Neville's reaction to Kuyt's kung-fu), I'd be embarrassed to have someone like Kuyt in my team, to have someone like Carragher who complains and complains to the ref all game without sanction, commits a professional foul, and then celebrates like he won the world cup. I'd be doubly embarrassed to have a "Comical Ali" style manager trying to defend the indefensible. And triple-y to be handed a game on a plate by such inept refereeing.

Ferret, I think you're right, it was a penalty, though it was not entirely clear. My point is this.... if that was Carragher on Johnson at Anfield (or even at Goodison), would it have been given?