| Product: |
Football in General |
| Date: |
12/05/01 (33 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Passes the afternoon
Disadvantages: Dull, Predictable, Boring
SPRINGTIME! The weather's on the turn, the flowers are starting to bud, the young ducks from the pond up the street are happily trolling across the road whenever they take the fancy, causing the motorists to wait impatiently for them to finish. GLORIOUS, WONDERFUL SPRINGTIME! And a young man's fancy turns to ... FOOTBALL! It's CUP FINAL DAY!
Now traditionally, FA Cup final day has always been the climax of the entire football season at home. True the annual England-Scotland fight to the finish was usually a couple of weeks later and that was the actual final game, but it was always the Cup final which got seen as the real end of the season.
Now that's taken a jolt in recent seasons as the money men who really run the game have tinkered around with this great event - last season the traditional first Saturday in January third round was switched to before Xmas (that got swiftly changed) and this season, the Premiership still has a full day of fixtures left and even though there's not much riding on anything, that will be the focus of attention. Worse still, we're off on our travels and rather than the annual pilgrimage to Wembley's Twin Towers, "We're on our way to ... errm, Cardiff!"
Now much as the changes to a lengthy tradition are pretty unattractive, it has to be said that the Cup final in recent times has started to wane as a feast to look forward to. Following last season's piss poor 'spectacle' between Chelsea and Villa, I started thinking how dull this had all become and my mind turned to trying to work out exactly how long ago there was a final worthy of the occasion.
True, we've had memorable moments and there's always a story to remember, but the final is supposed to be about a clash of the titans, a tumultuous death or glory contest where players would put their life on the line in their bid for their little place in the history books ... try and remem
ber real examples of that in the last thirty years.
United's Double triumph in 1999 was a one sided battle of attrition as Newcastle simply withered and died ... United's other Double in 1994 was BORING with a 4-0 defeat of Chelsea ... Spurs' defeat of Forest in 91 was memorable only for five crazy minutes of Gazza, which saw him stretchered off when he should have been sent off ... 89 saw the wave of Merseyside emotion as Liverpool and Everton provided a tribute to the dead of Hillsborough, but precious little football of any merit.
No, I reckon you need to go as far back as 1988 and Wimbledon's battling destruction of Liverpool and 1987 for the shock Coventry triumph over Spurs to find Cup finals of any real excitement and vigour. Prior to those two, I reckon only Sunderland's triumph over mighty Leeds in 1973 and the historic mudbath draw between Leeds and Chelsea in 1970 were of any real merit. So, that's just two Cup finals in 27 which have set the pulses racing to any great extent unless you were a committed supporter of one of the finalists - it's hardly a glowing testimonial, is it?
So, it wasn't with a great deal of anticipation that I looked forward to the 2001 final between two giants of the modern game, Arsenal and Liverpool. True they were second and third in the Premiership and filled with great players, but the omens weren't good. They'd had a bad tempered and bitter clash at the start of the season at Highbury, with Patrick Vieira dismissed, and there is a fair amount of animosity between the two squads.
I'd seen the build up for supposedly brilliant battles which turned into damp squibs too many times in recent seasons to have any faith in an optimistic claim that this would be a modern day classic. I sat back sullenly to await a real war of attrition (Can't help it, can you? No matter how bad you think it's going to be, you still have to tune in - there
9;s a feeling of grim fascination about the whole thing, very much like big England games).
All the talk beforehand was of Bergkamp and Fowler and whether they'd play, but they both missed out in the end, as expected. But two surprises were the omission of both Ray Parlour and Gary McAllister.
The first half was everything I had feared it would be - Liverpool seemed more concerned with countering the threat of Arsenal than with actually trying to make any progress themselves. Hamann sat solidly in front of his back four, with the other three midfielders tight in front of him. They relied almost entirely on the long ball up front to Heskey and Owen for their creative moments. As the half drew on, they slipped deeper and deeper into their own half, content to contain and play the easy, square or deep ball when they had it. Gerrard was deployed on closing down Vieira and never showed an attacking inclination.
Arsenal in contrast were more progressive and inventive, moving the ball wide to Pires and Dixon whenever they could and tried to pass and move through and round the negative Liverpool rearguard action. Vieira grew more and more dominant as the half wore on and it was the Gunners who had by far the greater degree of good possession.
However, the only real chance they managed to carve out was after 17 minutes when Ljungberg played Henry in on the right flank, he rounded the onrushing Westerveld and smashed the ball goalwards only for Henchoz's elbow to knock it wide. Both referee Dunn and his linesman missed the contact and Henry was furious.
It was clear after that point that Liverpool would be happy to soak up the punishment and prepare for the odd break to score against the run of play - they had opted to play in the dull style they had settled for during the UEFA Cup tie in Barcelona, a dull, sterile, containing game, with every man behind the ball and no risks taken.
Arsenal had all the posses
sion and all the ideas, but they hadn't found the way through that cloying, stodgy defence and all their dominance was counting for nothing. Here we go, I thought, this is going to be the great escape - it's going to plod on through a stalemate second half, Arsenal are going to start to lapse into the same approach as Liverpool in order to minimise risk and either Owen or Heskey would smugly capture a goal on the break in the dying minutes.
Well, it wasn't quite like that, and Arsenal continued to press forward in the second half. In the 56th minute Liverpool's goal survived a scramble when Henry missed two chances and then, finally, in the 71st minute Arsenal made what they thought would be the vital breakthrough. A poor clearance by Westerveld fell to Pires who clipped the ball back in. Ljungberg took the ball wide and fired home.
It was only then that Liverpool started playing. They threw on Fowler and Berger for Smicer and Murphy and almost immediately won a free kick on the left wing. The ball bounced loose in the area and Owen fired home. Five minutes later Owen beat Dixon to a long through ball and side footed the ball past Seaman for a late, late winner.
So, ultimately, we had a wonderful last twenty minutes after a dull, sterile, boring first 70.
Again, it was the old, old story and the headlines would be all about the Boy Wonder when they should have been about a Gunners triumph. How very, very predictable!
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