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Sticksboi05

By Sticksboi05
in The Tailgate

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Wellred93

Wellred93

Posted
Posted

Fully deserved equaliser. The atrackimg change half time has complerey flipped the game.

Very enjoyable game this. MUCH better than the last time in Lisbon.

Hail.

Yeah reminds me of this years superbowl it's not a final that's going to draw in new fans but if u understand the little things that are going on it's fascinating.
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Gibbs Hog Heaven

Gibbs Hog Heaven

Posted
Posted

Wish they'd bring back golden goal would stop the last 10 mins of extra time being a non event. Going to say real win 4-3 on pens.

 

 

Always thought the GG 'experiment' made teams even more defensive and cautious the nearer the end the game got as nobody wanted to make the mistake to end it. 

 

Hail. 

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Wellred93

Wellred93

Posted
Posted (edited)

Always thought the GG 'experiment' made teams even more defensive and cautious the nearer the end the game got as nobody wanted to make the mistake to end it.

Hail.

Funny my recollection is it encouraged the underdog to come out and attack and not settle for penatlies. But that might just be me remembering the South Korea Italy game in 2002

Edit how good was that Brazil team at that World Cup would have beaten the late 2000s Spanish team in my opinion.

Edited by Wellred93
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DC9

DC9

Posted
Posted

Ho hum of a final.  Two clubs that wanted to play pure Spanish football... nice and slow.

 

Have to ask if the Atleti keeper was even trying on the pens.  He looked injured but never sold out for a single one.


Funny my recollection is it encouraged the underdog to come out and attack and not settle for penatlies. But that might just be me remembering the South Korea Italy game in 2002
Edit how good was that Brazil team at that World Cup would have beaten the late 2000s Spanish team in my opinion.

 

Talent-wise I'd agree, but that Brasil didn't really play as a team.  That's what it was going to take to beat those tiki taka Spanish teams.

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FrFan

FrFan

Posted
Posted

Brazil '82. Best side to never win the WC if we're talking all time great Brazilian teams. 

 

Put that side up there with the 1970 vintage as 2 of the best National sides assembled there's ever been. 

 

Paolo frigging Rossi man, Travesty he did for them in Barcelona. 

 

Hail. 

I concure. Brazil 1970, 1982 were the most exciting/entertaining teams to watch. Brazil vs France in 1982 would have been the best WC final ever. I would add the amazing flying Dutchmen of 1974.

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Gibbs Hog Heaven

Gibbs Hog Heaven

Posted
Posted (edited)

*This is long. But for anyone interested this is my personal account of the tragic events in Brussels 31 years ago today.*

 

 

 

Liverpool ricorda. Dio resto. 

 

​With the help of Google translator from the Italian: Liverpool remembers. God rest. 

 

Heysel really starts a year prior. May 30. 1984. Rome's Olympic stadium. Home of AS Roma. Liverpool FC, going for a remarkable 4th European Cup triumph in 7 years to complete our first ever treble. Into the lions den of an uber hostile 'home' stadium for a final. Rome's final! They just couldn't lose with 60 thousand or so screaming, passionate Romans outnumbering the equally passionate Liverpudlian contingent 5/6- 1. But lose they did as one of the all time great L'pool teams did what most no other team in the World could of done at the time and beat the Italians, in their own back yard, to bring that glorious trophy home again after a tense penalty shoot-out with Brucie and his spaghetti legs unnerving Graziani and the great Roma legend Bruno Conti. For a wide eyed 9 year old Liverpudlian at his first European Cup final, this was heaven. I hadn't been exposed to much live football back then on two counts. One, we didn't have the money. Times were REAL hard back in the '80's and Thatcher took special delight in trying her best to destroy one of the very few City's that actually stood up to her. And my mum being scared witless for her sons safety with all the aggro and violence that went hand in hand with football at the time at every club. But this was a European Cup final. The biggest game of all. To complete a magnificent treble in Fagan's first season. And with my dad working the trains for British Rail (before Thatcher privatised the railways and that great British institution went), he had dirt cheap travel and his lad wasn't going to miss this one. (However much I remember he and me Ma arguing over it.). 'We'll be sound' he told her. 'Europe's different. The Italian's aren't like us.' So the boat-train was sorted, I jibbed out of school for a few days, and I left the Country for the first time in my young life the most excited I'd ever been. 

 

Turns out me Ma was smarter than me arl' fella as the Romans didn't take too kindly to losing their own European Cup final. As we came out of the Olympic Stadium, it was like a funnelled tunnel to the car park. Which was basically an ambush gauntlet as the Italians had massed and everything rained down. Bottles, stones the works. The Carabinieri were as useless as they've always proven to be in many more future visits to Italy who thought it prudent to just fire tear gas into US which just added to the mayhem. I don't mind saying I was in tears and the most scared I'd ever been in my young life with me dad and other guys trying to shield any kids against the wall. People were hiding behind cars from the indescriminate attacks and we managed to get onto a coach, even though we were due to be on a train, to get out of the way of the carnage. Always stuck with me seeing the older adults coming on the coach with blood streamed faces wondering what the heck had just happened. SO much different from earlier in the day when everyone was singing and dancing in good natured unison with local Roman's anticipating the match. I remember that coach then running a similar gauntlet of bricks and all sorts bombarding it as it weaved it's way back over the Tiber through Rome. Story's on the ferry home were of Lazio fans (I didn't even know there were two teams in Rome and had to ask me dad who Lazio were) coming out on the streets to protect L'pool fans from the attacks. I never knew at the time but our great secretary and administrator, Peter Robinson, raised serious concerns about the segregation and security measures on an advance visit to Rome which fell on deaf ears. And I believe that was the last time UEFA ever left security arrangements down to the host City and took it upon themselves to organise the game. But after what happened 12 months later that was hardly a good thing .....

 

When you win the European Cup, you then get to play the following season for the European Super Cup against the winners of the second European major, the UEFA Cup. Back in 1984, it was an annual game between the European Cup winners and the now defunct European Cup Winners Cup holders. Who that year just happened to be another Italian team, Juventus. (There had been a LOT of trouble the CWC semi final in Turin in 1984 also between Juventus and Manchester United, with Utd lads being run all over the place in similar vicious attacks.). Back then, this was played over two legs. Home and away. But through a combination of bad weather and cup replays, LFC had a heavy back log of fixtures. So finding two dates in the schedule was becoming very problematic to the point a one off game in Turin was decided on in January. Again, following on from what had happened in Rome the previous May, tensions were running REAL high between the Italians and Liverpool fans. There wasn't too many reds that made that trip to Turin. But those that did got similar treatment to what happened in Rome and story's came back of some real vicious attacks as fans left the Stadio Communale. (Juve won the game 2-0 but Liverpool were now painted as the enemy in Italy.). 

 

So when a few months later the European Cup final in Brussels paired Liverpool against Juventus yet again, the scene was already set. There were scores to settle. What had happened the last two times the previous 12 months was fresh in peoples memory's. Face to face with the Italians once again, similar wasn't going to happen. And not only Liverpudlians were thinking that way. In some inane, ****ed up  British sense of pride, scores against the Italians were there to be settled and Heysel was the unfortunate battleground .....

 

 

May 29, 1985. Liverpool FC's fifth European Cup final. Looking to retain the European Cup for the second time. Against the Italian Champions Juventus. In the Heysel Stadium, Brussels. A ramshackle, crumbling stadium nowhere near fit enough to host such a game. Set against the back drop of REAL high tensions between Italian and English supporters. In a VERY accessible City, Brussels, that was just a ferry ride away across the channel in Belgium. What could possibly go wrong ......

 

After what happened in 1984 in Rome, as you can imagine, there was NO way me Mam was gonna' allow me to go to this one. She didn't even want my dad going but knew there was no way of stopping him watching his beloved Liverpool FC in another European Cup final and a few days away with his mates. For want of a better expression, as luck would have it, my mum was in the hossi for a week or so that May having an op. And both my dad and my cousin took advantage, unbeknownst to her, as I was supposed to be at my cousins being looked after whilst she was in the Royal; managed to get tickets for us all and I was going to Brussels to watch the mighty reds do us proud in Europe again. (The repercussions when she found out after were NOT pretty but that's another story.).

 

We went on a coach on the day to Brussels at some ungodly hour. I remember it being pitch black when we set off and sleeping all the way down the coach to the ferry. What always does stand out was my dad was FAR more nervous than a year before on the trip over the water. And as we had some breaki on the packed ferry, there were a lot of unfamiliar accents that was real novel to me as I was just used to the familiarity of all my own little World back home with all my mates and teachers/ parents talking Scouse. The mood was far more cautious than the journey to Rome in '84. It was a gorgeous sunny day when we got the Continent, and that continued all through. The coach dropped us off in Brussels late morning,  and we all walked down the Grand'Place which was full of reds with hardly any Italian's anywhere. Everything seemed more relaxed with the bigger lads then and they were all drinking and singing, whilst I was sat in awe drinking a coke soaking it all in. Then as the afternoon went on, things started to turn again. The mood got more edgy and my dad was trying to get our Tony to come up the ground early with us so we weren't split up. There was a few scuffles that had broken out. Some lads in Union Jack t-shirts singing 'En-ger-lund, En-ger-lund' songs with 'f-off yer ****ney wool ****s!' and the like said to them as inter-club scuffles broke out. All of which was totally foreign for a L'pool game that I'd experienced. Then a shop window went through and lads with their rewards and Police after them were running in all directions. That was when we decided to get up the stadium. I remember me dad having a real argument with some fella' the tram as he was trying to keep me from getting squashed as this fella' was banging on the window over my head and singing. And then we got to the stadium which was absolute carnage in itself. (A ground Peter Robinson had appealed to UEFA to change on THREE separate occasions down to the dilapidated and unfit state of the venue for such an occasion.). We lost my cousin as there was a small group of Juventus fans and Liverpool fans squaring unto each other and he went straight over there before the riot Police came charging through on horseback. (Scary in itself as I nearly got trampled in the melee.). The Police were pushing and hitting people at the turnstiles, so my dad pulled us back and we walked round the end we had tickets for. Now this was just an outer breeze block wall, and as you walked round, there was, I **** you not,  a HOLE in the back wall  of the terrace that had been just kicked in which people were going through with the police trying to stop them. We got caught up in that throng and went into the stadium through that. A hole in a wall through the ruble. Which beggars belief to what we experience now. I still to this day have two complete, unchecked tickets for that game. Mine and me arl'fella's. They have 'Section Y' marked on them. Which was around the terrace to the other corner were the wall gave way. This was a couple of hours before kick off and things were real uneasy. With missiles going backwards an forwards to our right between the L'pool and Juventus sections but far enough away from us for my dad to start feeling better. 'Don't worry mate. They won't get to us. Our lads will take care of it. Yers excited about seeing the redmen win another European Cup?' He got me an orange juice in the early evening sun at the side after we'd been stood there for what seemed like forever, and there was a big commotion and you could see the L'pool fans and Juventus fans running at each other either side of the fencing separating the sections. I don't remember a bang of such, but I do remember a big cloud of smoke the opposite corner during all this which I presume now was was when the wall went. We never knew about the deaths until we got back to Ostend for the ferry home the following morning. To all intents and purposes, this was just a running battle that was sadly the norm on the terraces back then. I remember my dad getting real antsy when Juventus fans started streaming down from the other end around the running track trying to get into our section, with one firing a GUN in the air stood in front of us. He tried to get us out of the ground at that point (he'd never seen a gun in his life and that did it for him) but the Belgium Police were just battering anyone that tried to get out back in with their sticks. It was just surreal. And very frightening. Then it gradually began to calm with the Liverpool captain Phil Neal coming on the mic appealing for the fighting to stop. And then the game finally starts. It's unbelievable to look back and think it could even of been played with 39 people dying, or worse already dead; but we honestly din't know about any deaths. And when the players are out playing and there's a trophy's at stake, all that matters is the game. How could there be anything serious outside of some fighting if the game was allowed to be played?

 

But there was. And 39 people (32 Italians, 4 Belgium's, 2 French and 1 Northern Irish lad. Another example of other fans ignorance. '39 Italians Can't be Wrong!' If yers gonna' sink to abusing us over death, as least get yer facts straight!). ) tragically lost their lives with scores of others seriously injured. I remember after the game the Police presence being real heavy and aggressive and everyone thrown onto a line of coaches. Which they didn't allow any lights on and made us close all the curtains which was strange and just added to the rumours of 'Why?' It was a very sombre, quiet coach drive back through Belgium. Then when we got back to Ostend, people spitting on us as and armed Police shepherding everyone onto the ferry's. I was crying asking 'Why do they hate us so much Dad? We haven't done anything and the Juventus fella' had a gun!?' He couldn't explain ..... Little did we know and it wasn't until we were on the ferry and seen the English papers that the enormity of what had unfolded began to resinate and the absolute shock and disbelief spread. 

 

There's a lot been written about Heysel. Most born out of complete ignorance from other clubs fans who weren't there. And don't misjudge that for one moment as any kind of excuse of validation to condone our actions in that terrible day. I was 10 and in no way involved in any deaths. But it's something that's haunted me ever since that L'pool fans were in large part to blame and 39 people lost their lives. Having then suffered the trauma of Hillsborough 4 years later that did seriously effect me psychologically, and still does to this day, it just brings home what happened in Brussels all the harder. But within that acceptance and guilt for our actions, you can't escape all the mitigating factors that lead up to what happened. The build up in the previous meetings between English and Italian fans and all the attacks on Italian soil. UEFA disgracefully holding such a showpiece occasion in such a run down, joke of a stadium that was literally crumbling to bits against all calls for it to be moved. (Not only was there that hole the back wall. You could literally pick at the terracing and break it off. I know as I was small and sat down on it for a time doing just that!). The other English club fans that were there to 'do the Italians.' The elements from Turin that were just as aggressive as the English. And a Belgium Police force completely unprepared with dealing with football violence. 

 

We served our punishment with the European ban that was extended longer for Liverpool. 14 people served time of the 26 the Belgium's prosecuted. But none of that is any compensation to the 39 family's that lost loved ones who will never return from a football match. I fully understand to this day the hatred in Turin toward my City and football club. 

 

Hillsborough remains the worst day of my life and the worst Liverpool Football Club has ever experienced. And for even darker reasons, our share in the blame of what transpired that fateful May day in 1985 will also live with those of us that were there forever with a deep sense of guilt and sorrow. 

 

It's with a heavy heart that for the 30th straight year on this date I say 

 

Liverpool ricorda. Dio resto. 

 

Hail. 

Edited by Gibbs Hog Heaven
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DC9

DC9

Posted
Posted

 

We had a target just score a worldie for Portugal, too.

 

Excited for these next couple of weeks.  It's perfect.  Needed something to get me through June and now we're just about there.

 

Long preseason this year and straight into Redskins camp.  Hopefully some good signings to keep us talking.

Raphael Guerrero.  Never heard of him.  https://twitter.com/UEFAEuros_2016/status/737228078049546240

 

Weird to see Higuain link himself to us.  Followed by another CB from Barca.  Folks putting up their hands to play for a side with no European football.

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