Liverpool Are Stunning European Cup Champions

OK, few who regularly read this blog have any idea what in heckness I'm on about. If so, then that's your loss. For the few that might this is for you.

Liverpool Football Club won its fifth European Cup on Wednesday against AC Milan in the most improbably fashion. Down 1-0 after just 1 minute, then 3-0 by halftime things looked mighty grim. Yet somehow Liverpool managed to score 3 goals within 6 minutes, and after only 15 minutes into the second half had tied the score. The game then remained tied through regulation play, and then through 30 minutes of extra time (not without many a scare and incredible save), forcing the dreaded penalty kick shootout which Liverpool won by 3 goals to 2.

This is how the Liverpool FC Web site described the game:

"Amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, extraordinary, hair-raising, heart-stirring, magnificent, marvellous, miraculous, moving, overwhelming spectacular, spine-tingling, striking, stunning, stupefying, stupendous, wonderful."

As a Liverpool fan for 30 plus years I couldn't have said it better.

For those of you who think football (soccer) is boring, this game was proof of how wrong that viewpoint can be. Watching the game at the George and Dragon Pub in Fremont, with the patrons largely supporting the English club, was electric. The G&D show many games throughout the year, both live and replayed later in the evening, and if you are a local football fan it is a great place to watch them. And no, even though I watched a replay about 5 hours after the game was over, nobody who may have known the final score would have dared say anything.

Normally you'd think the champion would get to defend their title the next year, but Liverpool were huge underdogs this year and in coming 5th in the English Premiership only qualified for the second tier UEFA Cup tournament for next year. However, many are lobbying the powers that be to allow Liverpool to defend their European Champions Cup and fans can only hope they get that chance.

Regardless of what happens, this win cleanses 20 years of suffering for Liverpool fans since the 1985 final tragedy at which fans rioted causing the death of 39 spectators, and a lengthy ban from European competition. They last won the tournament the year before, in 1984. So this a moment to savor and enjoy, and it is one I will surely remember for many years to come, as I'm sure many other football fans will.