29/08/2008
in this morning’s champion’s league group draw, most teams could confess that they’re happy with the results. however liverpool, as usual, seem destined to pull out the toughest possible combination of clubs. in this year’s champion’s league group phase, the reds will face psv eindhoven, olympique de marseille and athletico madrid. although liverpool should come through that group on top, it’s definitely the trickiest group and points will be extremely valuable … i predict a fair few draws.
in other groups, man united face celtic and villareal (another tricky group) … while my boys from bremen have been grouped with the very scary inter milan. however, werder bremen’s group also has greek team panathinaikos and cyprus minnows anorthosis famagusta fc. bremen are a good chance of reaching knockouts. group h features real madrid and juventus, which should produce some excellent football.
this year the groups are more evenly distributed, with the true heavyweights managing to avoid each other. it also means, come knockout stages, that there will be some tough clashes. this year’s champions league may be the toughest yet … despite the absence of six times champions ac milan.
28/08/2008
the reds have kept with tradition, barely managing to put away belgian team standard liege at anfield last night. the visitors had nothing to lose and played gritty football. they had two good chances denied thanks to the great work of pepe reina. liverpool couldn’t seem to find their paces and the game went into overtime, in search of a result. dirk kuyt came to liverpool’s rescue, side footing in a close range ball to give the reds victory.
tonight liverpool will discover their three opponents for the champions league group matches. fortunately, all four english teams have been seeded, meaning that we cannot be grouped with man u, chelsea or arsenal. however some very strong teams are in the mix, including barca, juventus, madrid and inter milan. none of the other teams look that threatening.
in other news, former liverpool winger and aussie international harry kewell has been finding some decent form at his new club galatasaray. he scored on his debut and socceroos coach verbeek has praised kewell’s return to form. harry will be included in the squad to face uzbekistan in september. hopefully he can stay on his feet this season, helping the aussies into our second consecutive world cup.
18/08/2008
liverpool’s preseason went well and they’ve carried their form over into the beginning of the premier league season with a 1-0 win over sunderland. the reds didn’t make themost of their chances and sunderland were still in the game until torres opened his goal scoring account. liverpool claimed all three points and look forward to next week’s match; their first season home game against middlesbro.
this win comes after a very mediocre result against standard liege, the belgian league champions, who held liverpool to a draw in europe. the belgians will travel to anfield with the hope of knocking the reds out of champions league.
