To be 100 % honest, I still hadnt recovered from last weeks Champion's League games, the Manchester United vs. Porto tie, and of coarse the huge upset that Chelsea pulled on Liverpool last week. Nonetheless I had decided that there was no way that this week could be any more exciting than last week. I was pretty sure that Chelsea was going through even though Liverpool might try to put up a fight. I was right about Chelsea going through to the Semi Finals, however I was very wrong about the size of the fight that was left in Liverpool. I watched most of the game with my mouth wide open, and my eyes glued to the screen. The game ended in a 4-4 draw with Chelsea advancing into the Semi finals with aggregate win of 7-5. All in all the Chelsea vs. Liverpool match up produced a huge upset at Anfield, 12 goals, and a ton of exciting football.
Im not exactly sure what i should say about the game it's self. Both clubs entered Tuesday's game without their regular captains. John Terry was suspended in the first leg because of a yellow card, and Steven Gerrard was out with a Groin Injury. Rafa Benitez had been saying that Liverpool had nothing to lose going into the game, and almost seemed to have moved 100% of his focus towards winning the Premier League. By the 30th minute of the game all of this had changed. Liverpool was up 2-0 thanks to goals by Fabio Aurelio with a clever free kick, and Xabi Alonso who put away a penalty kick. Liverpool was one goal away from reaching the Semi-Finals and looked to be very capable of scoring that goal. Chelsea looked like they had given up from the very beginning of the game, and didnt get alot of possession during the first half. Going into halftime Liverpool looked like they were heading towards a big win. However it didnt take long for Didier Drogba to turn things around off a great cross from Anelka that went in off of Reina's glove. 5 minute later Alex scored again for Chelsea off a brilliant bending free kick ( it was one of the best free kicks i have ever seen). Once again it seemed as though Chelsea had secured their place in the Semi-Finals. Frank Lampard's Goal in the 76th minute seemed to be the nail in the coffin for Liverpool. Things turned for Liverpool almost as quicly as they had turned for Chelsea only 15 minutes prior with two quick goals. One from Lucas whose shot took a deflection off of Essien, and then a minute later Kuyt scored a header making the score 4-3. The whole game seemed to slow down for the last 10 minutes with both teams getting a few looks at the goal. Liverpool needed just one Goal to clench the spot in the Semi-Finals. Frank Lampard had different plans, Lampard's shot in the 89th minute bounced off both goal posts before finding some net. 3 minutes of added time later the game was over and i was trying to make sure that i wasn't dreaming.
One week ago when i wrote a previe for the Chelsea vs. Liverpool game i said that Liverpool would walk away with the win. I figured that the Aggregate score might be somewhere around 2-1. It's times like these that i dont mind being completely wrong. When two teams of this caliber play each other, its always hard to guess the outcome, but the outcome of the two Chelsea vs. Liverpool games left many people on the edges of their seats, and possibly some Chelsea fans going to get a heart check up. I just hope that tomorrow's games, the Semi-finals, and the final in Rome can live up to this matchup.
Cheers,
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