Solipcism and Scousers

One of those blogs that started off as a stream of consciousness ramble half an hour after the end of the final itself, but in my laziness I have only now got round to finishing . . .

An absolutely enthralling cup final. One of those games that if it landed on your desk as a script, you would dismiss it out of hand as too far fetched. (Mind you, weren't they 3-0 down at half time in Escape to Victory. But the only penalty shoot outs in them days was the Gestapo firing squad.)

A goal down after a minute from a Paolo Maldini goal, for christ sake!!! The only time he is usually in his opponent's half is if he thinks that there is a GQ photo shoot in the offing. Then a couple of goals from the Chelsea reject, Crespo, to make it 3-0 to Milan at half time. (The way Crespo dinked his second goal in, from that brilliant pass from Kaka, without even looking up at Dudek closing down the space was absolutely wonderful.) Milan were totally bossing the game, and when you consider a defence of Cafu, Maldini, Staam (nice to see him get that warm reception from the Liverpool fans every time he touched the ball) and Nesta, with ex-R*ngers player, Gattuso,* mopping up any loose balls as Milan's holding midfield player, it didn't even look as if Liverpool would get a consolation corner, never mind a consolation goal.

A Liverpool side that was completely listless in the first half, with Kewell that ineffective that I thought he was going to take a lap of honour out of gratitude to Benitez when he had the good sense to subsitute him after Kewell tripped over his alice-band and got injured. (The rumour currently doing the rounds at Anfield is that there is a clamour for the Kop End to petition Channel Four for a new reality tv show called 'Job Swap', in which Harry will swap careers with his wife for the whole of next season. Him pulling the pints in the Woolpack, and Trish playing as an inside forward. The Liverpool midfield was totally anonymous first half, and when half time came I made a point of sitting down in front of the computer to compose some lame gags for an email to the UK Left Network Discussion list, rather than listen to Terry Venables do his cheeky chappy analysis routine, whilst Steve MacMadrid, through gritted teeth alongside him, stopped himself leaping out of his chair to exclaim: "It should have been me. Me and my mate Robbie Fowler should be out on the pitch right now." That's how resigned I was to the second half being a total calamity, with thoughts of Liverpool being at the receiving end of a hammering all too reminiscent of Real Madrid 7-3 demolition of Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European Cup Final.**

There I was in the front of the computer, trying once again of thinking of a way to rip the piss out of Ted Grant - high fallutin' political stuff - when a yelp is heard from the next room: "Darren, Liverpool have just scored. Gerrard with a header." I nip in to catch the replay of the goal, and see a brilliant looping header going into the top corner. A goal that the goalkeeper had no chance of saving, but he looked like a chump anyway 'cos he didn't do the obligatory: "I know I can't save this, but I will fall over in its general direction anyway" style saving face maneouvre, so beloved of goalies from twenty a side games in council parks in Glasgow to Real Madrid-Barcelona grudge matches in the Nou Camp stadium.

I do my usual routine of: "Typical, I walk out the room and they score. If I walk out again, they'll probably score again." I walk back to the computer, only half interested in the footie but more concerned with thinking of something to say about Ted Grant that didn't involve me having a pop at his comb over haircut. (As I said, high fallutin' political stuff), and then a couple of minutes later another unnatural noise from the front room: "It's 3-2 - I can't believe it." Do my 0-60 dash in 2.4 seconds to see the replay of Smicer hitting a rasper (Copyright Football Cliche, Tiger Annual 1979) of a shot into the bottom right hand corner. Baros makes his most telling contribution of the evening - aside from his impersonation of a man who can go into an empty six yard box and start an argument - by not getting into the way of the shot as it goes goalwards.

By this point, my solipcism is really kicking in big time. I'm thinking: "If I stay in the room, I'll only jinx them. I better leave the room again, finish this email to Kara, and that way Liverpool can score an equaliser." My nephew looks at me strangely as I'm mumbling to myself, as if I'm a 2002-2004 Socialist Standard bound volume short of the November 2003 issue, and I correct - or at least mask - my madness by saying: "Don't worry Kerr, this same scene of a person thinking they are pivotal to the success or failure of Liverpool is going on in twenty thousand living rooms as we speak". He doesn't believe me, but I use the opportunity of him edging away from me in a frightened manner, to leave the room again to sit in front of the computer.

I'm just parking my bum down on the chair in front of the computer when it's that strangulated voice exclaiming from the living room again: "Christ, Milan nearly scored." I'm thinking: "I can live with that. They didn't score. It has no bearing on my solipcism." Thirty seconds later, the same voice from the living room, but this time three octaves higher, shouts out that line from the best football song of all time - bugger 'World in Motion' and the 'Three Laddos' crap from '96, I'm talking about the 1982 Scottish World Cup song, 'We Have A Dream' - that immortal line crooned by BA Robertson: "It's a Penalty." I rush in to see a replay - there's a pattern developing here and in my solipcism I'm thinking: "If this was a scene from a film, they would be playing The The's 'Slow Emotion Replay' at this point." A bit literal, mind, but a brilliant song nonetheless - of Gattuso committing GBH on Gerrard (did Gattuso and Hurlock play at the same time at Ibrox), and lip reading Carragher doing his impersonation of a Corinthian Casual to the referee, by shouting at him at point blank range: "Send the wanker off, Ref".

The Ref, as part and parcel of a generally woeful performance all night, allows Gattuso to stay on the pitch (I make a mental note that Gattuso will now probably score the winner), and I face my solipcism head on by opting to stay in the room to watch the penalty actually being taken. I notice that the Milan keeper is a giant, and that Liverpool's penalty taker, Alonso, looks nervous walking up with the ball to the penalty spot. I'm thinking this doesn't look good, and right enough a poorly placed penalty kick is saved by the keeper, but before I can turn to my nephew, and with an evil grin, intone: "I telt ye", Alonso follows up the parried save and hits the rebound into the net. 3-3, and Milan fans in the stadium are hiding their faces in their silk scarves, Everton fans are throwing themselves in the Mersey and I'm thinking: "Where's that bugger, Berlusconi. He must be in the stadium. Please zoom the camera in on his face this very minute so I can revel in his misery. (I told you - I'm all about high fallutin' political stuff.)

I have to watch the game full on now. Where the Liverpool midfield in the first half were using the centre of the park to re-enact a scene from the Marie Celeste, Gerrard, Hamman and Riise are now covering every blade of grass (Copyright Football Cliche, Shoot Annual 1981), chasing down the Milan players everytime they have the ball, coming out tops in every tackle and winning every loose ball that pings round the pitch.

The Milan manager, Ancelotti, is at this point on the touchline thumbing his Fifa identification tag as if it is a crystal from Carole Caplin with promised special properties, and wondering where he put his receipt so he can get a refund, and ex-Rangers man Alex Miller, now part of Benitez's coaching staff, is in a daze looking around the stadium in Istanbul and muttering to himself: "So this is what Europe looks life after Christmas, I always wondered. I must give Big Derek Johnstone a call when I get back home to tell him all about it."

I sit down in the armchair and the solipicism kicks in again. Liverpool, though in control of the game now, now don't look like scoring again and, as in the first half, are starting to sit too deep again, allowing Milan to recover some sort of composure, and relying on hitting and hoping with fifty yard punts up field to the general vicinity of Baros, where sometimes he gets a toe poke of the ball, sometimes he gets a toe poke of his marker, but always it finishes with the camera focussing on his moany 'greetin' face whilst he is mouthing to the referee in Czech: "You're off my Christmas Card list, you bastard."

Within a few minutes I know that both sides are too tentative now, too scared of committing that one fatal error that will ensure that the miscreant, depending on who messes up, will be getting letters of thanks from Everton or Internazionale fans for the next twelve months. The director of the tv footage can also sense that a lot of the momentum has now gone out of the game, 'cos s/he now spends the last quarter of normal playing time, spending an inordinate amount of time picking out drop dead gorgeous but disconsolate Milan fans in the crowd to zoom in on for a close up. By way of contrast, we also get lots of shots of 18 stone Liverpool fans who think it's a sign of devotion to their team to remove their replica football tops and re-enact the belly-dancing bit from U2's Mysterious Ways video. When in Istanbul and all that . . . And the nation viewers, whilst simultaneously averting their eyes as they cough and splutter as their tea goes down the wrong way, are also able to breathe a wee sigh of relief with the thought that their hub caps are safe tonight.

The only thing of note towards the end of normal time - apart from the realisation of what a great player Schevchenko is; the only player on the pitch going for that winning goal as the match winner he undoubtedly is - is the introduction of Ciisse for Baros, for Liverpool. Ciisse is an absolute enigma to me. For everytime I see him on the telly, a pattern has developed - I first spot the new haircut, and wonder What the fuck has he on his head!! (tonight it looks like the road map of the M11), and I then once again hear the match commnetator telling anyone that will listen that Ciisse is only 70% match fit, but that he has a lovely burst of pace and that he will be able to capitalise on the tiredness of the opponents defence in the last few minutes of the game. Every time I go through this ritual, and everytime I kid myself on that he will come good and that £12 million quid - or whatever the exact figure they shook out of the Moores family - was money well spent (in football terms), and he is not just the 21st century equivalent of Gary Birtles: Too busy deceiving to actually flatter.

What actually happens is that when Ciisse gets the ball he does an excellent impersonation of that ball-hog that inhabited every school playground during dinner time. That wee guy who takes the ball, thinking he can beat 27 opponents, but whose plans are stymied by the fact that he trips over his Clarks shoes after moving no more than two feet with the ball.

To everyone's relief, extra time comes and Gerrard measures up to all the hype by going to the right side of defence to snuff out the danger of Milan's Serginho. Every tackle he goes into he comes out with the ball and bad haircut intact, and a defanged Liverpool in the middle of the park with Gerrard elsewhere just goes to highlight how integral he is to their team, and how much they will miss him when he is at Chelsea next year sitting on the bench next to Geremi and Scottie Parker.

Extra time for the most part is an anti-climax. Liverpool refuse to throw their players forward in any serious numbers, and increasingly they have to rely on Ciisse repaying Liverpool's faith in him by trying to win corners. (He must have missed the meeting where they explained what a match-winner was.) Liverpool defend deep and my heart is in my mouth fighting for space with a Cornish Pastie every time Schevchenko gets the ball and tries to dribble it into the net. Carragher is playing brilliant but looks absolutely knackered. After the game, when he was being interviewed I looked on with awe, thinking: 'Christ, he is that exhausted that his voice has gone all high pitched and squeaky, and then I realised he was a scouser and he always talked like that.' Traore has apparently signed a Faustian pact with the devil whilst on the pitch which allows him to look like he is going to make that fatal defensive mistake - otherwise known as 'doing a Hansen' - but recovering in time for the ball to punted to safety, or at least to Ciisse so he can lose the ball again.

By this point I'm doing what I always do when getting anxious watching a live game on the telly - I start moaning at length: 'Look at Dudek - I'm not happy with the way he distributes the ball. He takes too long dithering over the ball, and then promptly punts it to a Milan player. If this goes to penalties, Milan are going to win. The Milan keeper, Didi, is far more imposing in the penalty box.' If I'm going to get it wrong, why do things by halves?

I know something is afoot - and I should have sussed it earlier when Dudek made a brilliant save from a piledriving free kick - when in the last few minutes of extra time he pulls off an astonshing double save from Schevchenko. My brother in law thinks Banks, I'm thinking Montgomery but on fifth viewing I reach the conclusion that the second save is more Stallone. Dudek does what every goalie does after pulling off a brilliant save, he looks about nonchalantly whilst defenders pat him on the head, and Schevchenko looks skywards for the GoodYear blimp, in the hope that a charitable soul will lower down a rope ladder for him so he can escape his embarassment.

The whistle blows for the end of extra time, and it's all going to rest on who bottles it first. Both teams are in the centre of the pitch, and whilst Gerrard, Maldini and the referee swap tips on moisturising creams, the camera zooms in on Carragher gesticulating wildly at Dudek, and I'm thinking that they are trying to relieve the tension by having an impromptu game of charades. I guess wrongly - it wasn't Carragher miming Condorman, but in fact him reminding Dudek of the 1984 final, which had also gone to penalties and where Grobbelaar done the wobbly legs routine (which he was to involuntary re-enact many years later when he opened up the News of the World one Sunday morning to see photo stills of himself accepting bribes for throwing matches.)

I have no idea who won the toss, but it falls to Serginho of Milan to take the first penalty. Dudek moves along his line waving his arms in a passable impression of Grobbellar circa 1984, and Sergenhio skies a penalty that is part career suicide, part homage to Chris Waddle circa 1990. Liverpool score their penalty then Pirlo steps up to take the second penalty for Milan. For some reason all through the game, whenever Pirlo's name is mentioned, I think of a wine mentioned in Sideways, which lets you know all you need about the damage I have done to my ears down the years from listening to excellent music on personal stereos and my piss poor knowledge of overpriced vinegar. By this stage, I realise that Dudek has the upper hand in the mind games with the Milan players - not just with the st vitus dance routine on the goal line but the wee trick of handing the ball to his opponent before every penalty whilst eyeballing them. Dudek's routine follows the pattern of the first penalty, except for one minor change: this time, he moves so far off his line before the ball is kicked by Pirlo that he is in a different Istanbul postcode from that of the stadium. He promptly saves the penalty, and the ref is consistent in his performance by having a ricket (copyright Big Ron circa 1993), and not having the bottle to insist that the penalty is retaken.

A couple of other penalties are taken - Brett Anderson finally scoring a penalty for Milan - and then Ciisse goes up to take a penalty for Liverpool. I need to watch this one - this could be a scene to tell someone's Grandkids - Ciisse in the penalty box. Sure enough, after he establishes with the ref that he can't play the ball for a corner, he is yet another one who turns my world upside down whilst watching this game, by calmly dispatching the penalty without a second glance.

Schevchenko then turns up on the tv screen, looking calm and collected, as if he knows what to do, and by the being the best player on the pitch by a country mile he duly misses his penalty. (An attempt at one of those cheeky chipped penalties down the middle of the goal that always worked for Di Canio, which when they go right makes the scorer look like a boy genius but when they go wrong . . . .) Liverpool have won the Cup, and there is a melee on the pitch with that weird scene that always accompanies such occasions when twenty players show their appreciation of the match-winning player by dive bombing on him at speed. "We love you Jerzy - let's show you how much by fracturing a couple of your ribs."

Absolutely amazing scenes then follow with tens of thousands of Liverpool fans in the stadium belting out an inspired rendition of 'Walk On', whilst Gerry Marsden is sitting somewhere making a mental note to cash in by re-releasing it with a commemmorative cover. The Liverpool players are totally ecstatic and do the old 'kiss the badge' routine, which fans fall for every time and I say a silent prayer of thanks that I am not watching this game on BBC, so I don't have to sit through the cringing sight of Garth Crooks grabbing players and then asking them the most stupid questions, which leaves you having to look away from the screen out of some sense of sympathy for the player at the receiving end.

Who we do get with the roving microphone is the excellent Gabriel Clarke. As befits someone who was named after an Everton player, he duly grabs Gerrard and asks him if he will be at Liverpool next season. Gerrard sidesteps the question with a deftness of movement that suggests a future career in politics.

Whilst all this is going on, the worker-ants at Fifa are setting up the temporary stage in the centre of the stage for the awarding of the trinkets and trophy. The Milan players are up first, and they look like they have just attended a Leonard Cohen/Red House Painters double bill. as they collect their medals. The ref then steps up to collect his cards, and finally we have the Liverpool players going up one by one to collect their medals from Lennart Johannson (who looks like he is on day release from sleeping on the House of Lords back benches), and more than one Liverpool player take the opportunity of kissing the trophy before lining up behind it. Ciisse has to do it a little differently, however, by somehow managing that the trophy resembles a pole to which he proceeds to gyrate around like he is re-enacting a scene from Showgirls. Benitez notes that Ciisse shows more movement in the next thirty seconds than he has in the last 12 months.

Gerrard, as captain, is the last man to collect his medal and whilst he is standing there to receive the trophy, Johannson shows what a knowledgable guy he is about who has been playing tonight, and who are their respective captains, by promptly turning his back on Gerrard and trying to pass the trophy to Jamie Carragher to lift (he is last heard mumbling to himself: 'All scousers look the same to me without their shellsuits on' as he is led back to his bathchair). An apparatchik from UEFA quickly defuses this situation by spinning Johannson around 180 degrees and Gerrard gets to duly lift the trophy whilst a nation watching on tv decides to either go for a piss, put the kettle on or switch over to UK Gold to count the double entendres in an old episode of The Thin Blue Line.

I decide to continue to watch the celebrations realising that the sight of Harry Kewell celebrating the win as if he played a part in it is far funnier than any clapped out old sitcom from the pen of that old phoney Ben Elton.

As a spectacle the match was up there with the best of them. The football wasn't that pretty - come on, reality check, we aren't talking France-West Germany '82 here - but it was a game that will be talked about years from now, and even as I write, there will be kids - and quite a few adults, too - in Surrey, Cornwall and Trondheim taking down their bedroom Man Utd posters and replacing them with Liverpool4Ever pennants. It's like the early eighties all over again - I'm away to listen to the greatest hits of The Jam.

* At one point during the game, I spot a Liverpool fan with a Liverpool/R*ngers scarf. My Brother in Law and I agree that the fan must be from Northern Ireland.

** Everybody from Glasgow over the age of 50 claims to have been at this game. I know at least one of my Grandads was at Hampden Park that day to witness Puskas, Di Stefano and Gento in full pomp. A shame they were Franco's team.