CAST your minds back to the 2004-05 Champions League semi-final first leg between Chelsea and Liverpool at Stamford Bridge. The game had very little in the way of excitement, and ended goalless; fairly typical of a Mourinho / Benitez encounter.
The main talking point, however, came when Blues’ striker Eidur Gudjohnsen went down, under a seemingly innocuous ‘challenge’ from Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso. Replays showed no contact had been made; Alonso was shown a yellow card, and subsequently missed the decisive return leg at Anfield.
This, quite rightly, infuriated the Merseysiders, and ever since, Alonso and his teammates have taken great pleasure in castigating Gudjohnsen for his behaviour; Steven Gerrard even dedicated a few pages of his autobiography to the incident.
So, the last person you would expect to see trying to get an opposing player booked during a Champions League semi-final first leg would be Xabi Alonso. How wrong can you be? Anybody with a half-decent pair of eyes could see that when Chelsea captain John Terry challenged Reds’ keeper Pepe Reina for a 50/50 that was there to be won, there was no malice whatsoever intended.
However, when the camera panned to Alonso, he was insinuating to Didier Drogba that Terry had led with an elbow, and doing his utmost to get the Blues’ leader booked. The result: Terry does get booked, and…you guessed it…misses the return leg.
Shame on you, Xabi.
The main talking point, however, came when Blues’ striker Eidur Gudjohnsen went down, under a seemingly innocuous ‘challenge’ from Liverpool midfielder Xabi Alonso. Replays showed no contact had been made; Alonso was shown a yellow card, and subsequently missed the decisive return leg at Anfield.
This, quite rightly, infuriated the Merseysiders, and ever since, Alonso and his teammates have taken great pleasure in castigating Gudjohnsen for his behaviour; Steven Gerrard even dedicated a few pages of his autobiography to the incident.
So, the last person you would expect to see trying to get an opposing player booked during a Champions League semi-final first leg would be Xabi Alonso. How wrong can you be? Anybody with a half-decent pair of eyes could see that when Chelsea captain John Terry challenged Reds’ keeper Pepe Reina for a 50/50 that was there to be won, there was no malice whatsoever intended.
However, when the camera panned to Alonso, he was insinuating to Didier Drogba that Terry had led with an elbow, and doing his utmost to get the Blues’ leader booked. The result: Terry does get booked, and…you guessed it…misses the return leg.
Shame on you, Xabi.
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