Not sure how reliable Charles Sale is, but just a bit of gossip.
Unfortunately, RJ, I know nothing about this journalist....but he writes for the Daily Mail.
Anyway, I find it quite ridiculous how journalists can't be trusted both here and across the pond, to inform us correctly whether the current owners or indeed prospective owners were in attendance at such a major football match.
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Global Soccer
On a Thrilling Night, Liverpool Loses With PrideArticle Tools Sponsored By
By ROB HUGHES
Published: April 15, 2009
LONDON — On their way to the stadium before their Champions League game against Chelsea in London, some Liverpool players pledged their performance to the memory of 96 fans of the club who died at a game 20 years ago. The players knew they would come face to face with families still grieving lost sons and daughters at a memorial service in Liverpool on Wednesday. And they knew that their chance of retrieving the quarterfinal was remote following a 3-1 defeat at home six days earlier.
They also knew, from experience, that the three previous matchups between Chelsea and Liverpool in this tournament had been grinding, mean-spirited stalemates that yielded a paltry total of three goals in six games. So it seemed daring, if not potentially demeaning to those whose memories the players said they were honoring, to offer Tuesday as a gift of remembrance.
How wrong such pessimism now appears. How wonderfully Liverpool chased a lost cause. How spirited was Chelsea’s response in a contest that ended 4-4 with hope alive on either side until the final whistle that Liverpool would pull off another extraordinary act of escapology in European competition. Think Istanbul 2005, when Liverpool came back from 3-0 down to beat AC Milan in the Champions League final, and you get some inkling of what this club has in its heart. Think of the past six seasons, in which Chelsea has reached the semifinals five times, and you realize how the London club found resolve to see out Tuesday. “It’s true that we ended up where we started,” said Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, after the draw that meant his team was eliminated by a tennis score, 7-5, on aggregate. “But we showed our character and our quality, it’s no disgrace to lose like this. I am really proud of the players, and proud for the fans who were pushing and supporting the team the whole time.”
Guus Hiddink, the Chelsea coach, watched his side give away two goals before halftime and acknowledged there was “a little anger” in the locker room. It brought a response. The match was all-square, 2-2, before the hour and then went ahead. Liverpool replied again and took the lead with eight minutes remaining. Facing possible defeat, Chelsea scored. It was a pulsating affair.
“Ya,” Hiddink said. “It’s very dramatic. You think you are down and then you are up, then down again. You are in the game one minute, then you are out of it. Players make a lot of errors — that’s why it becomes so attractive to watch.” Speaking of attractions, Chelsea now meets Barcelona in the semifinals. Hiddink, an admirer of the free-flowing style with which Barcelona overwhelmed Bayern Munich, 5-1 on aggregate, is under no illusions that his team could get away with such errors at Camp Nou on April 28. Hiddink is an interim coach. Chelsea is his team only for a few months, after which he will leave, or so he keeps saying, to focus on his permanent role guiding Russia’s national squad to the 2010 World Cup. Until then, he exercises his right to tear into his Chelsea players at halftime.
“I can say there was a little anger,” he said afterwards. “Not just from the coach, but top players have the same anger. They know themselves they gave too much space and a good team with tactical awareness like Liverpool will punish you. I said ‘Hey, guys, this is not the way we talked about, this is not the way we will start the second half.”’ “But that’s why I like to work with this team, because they react,” he said. “They know they can score.”
They can score, and score again. The first half had been an open invitation to Liverpool, even a Liverpool missing its driving force Steven Gerrard who sat, injured, in the stands alongside one of the club’s American co-owners, George Gillett.
Fabio Aurelio impudently exploited a schoolboy error by Chelsea goalie Petr Cech, who left yards of space for Aurelio to score with a direct hit from a free kick 30 yards away. Xabi Alonso scored a penalty after he had been held back by defender Branislav Ivanovic who gripped him with both hands.
The response Hiddink sought was led by Didier Drogba, who surprised Pep Reina, the Liverpool goalkeeper, with a flick of his foot. Then came a free kick of such venomous velocity by the Brazilian Alex that Reina could see it coming but not get a hand to it.
Drogba, marauding in his forceful way, set up Frank Lampard to score after 76 minutes. Chelsea led 3-2 its overall edge was three goals.
Surely not even Liverpool could claw a way back from that? Benítez seemed to signal the surrender when he withdrew his main attacker, Fernando Torres, with 10 minutes to go. The message, however, seemed not to get through to his players.
Lucas struck a shot from outside the penalty area that deflected into the net off the torso of Michael Essien. Then Dirk Kuyt, with a mighty header, put Liverpool back in front.
At this point, not only was the contest solely in the players’ control, we, the audience, wished that the night could go on forever. It seemed a long time since Chelsea and Liverpool locked horns in such a vindictive fashion that Lampard broke the ankle of Alonso, and Alonso, when he was restored, took revenge.
Those were the days when José Mourinho coached Chelsea and Benítez was new to Liverpool. The bad blood between managers, one Portuguese and the other Spanish, seemed to infect the players who subsumed themselves to the vendetta like soldiers fighting a disreputable war.
With Mourinho gone, to coach Inter in Milan, the ill-will between the clubs has dissipated. On Tuesday, Benítez accepted Hiddink’s hand and his offer to drink wine together.
Their opportunity to do so was sealed by the final goal of the remarkable game Tuesday, the ball struck against one post and ricocheting off the other before crossing the line from Lampard’s shot.
The result wasn’t the right one to take back to Liverpool, but the performance fulfilled the promise.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/sports/soccer/16iht-SOCCER.html?ref=global-home