With the home team pressing in the dying moments, the ball breaks loose - and suddenly theres Fernando Torres, crazily isolated, sprinting into whole miles of open space, almost as if spot-lit, just the goalkeeper between him and the goal that puts the outcome beyond doubt. Ah, yes: whatever happens in other Champions League semi-finals, well never forget that moment in the Nou Camp in 2012.And nor, I suspect, will we ever have trouble remembering last Sundays miniature re-enactment of it at Anfield - the same player, the same stage in the game, the same break, the same turn-and-go sprint, the same slightly resigned last-ditch lunge by the abandoned goalkeeper. But a slightly and importantly different final outcome. Put yourself in Torres head in those seconds last Sunday as he headed up the entirely vacated pitch and bore down on the Liverpool goal. How much must he have wanted to score at that moment? It would stand to reason, wouldnt it? This is Anfield were talking about. He had, with boring inevitability, been jeered in the warm-up, jeered while stretching, jeered off the bench and jeered onto the pitch. And now it had come down to this: Torres v. Mignolet for 2-0 in the final seconds. What an opportunity to make a point - not just to the thousands in the stadium but, beyond that, to the millions watching on television around the world. Would anyone have blamed Torres if he had drifted round the goalkeepers flailing body, thumped the ball into the unguarded net with slightly more power than was strictly necessary, and then executed a vengeful Emmanuel Adebayor-style sprint back down the pitch, terminating in a 30-yard, turf-ruining knee-slide to land up in front of the Kop with his hands cupped behind his ears? Wasnt that exactly what this unique combination of circumstances seemed to be asking for - indeed, crying out for? But no. Not for Torres. He drew the goalkeeper, he paused, he thought, he passed to Willian, and Willian ran it in. And then Torres joined his team mates for a bit of hair-ruffling in front of the away section and jogged back up the pitch for the restart. Class. And see also his sympathetically muted response to scoring last night. Sheer class. As Liverpool well know, you simply cant buy that. Or rather, you can, but youll need to spend a lot of money.
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 17:28:27 +0000
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