Liverpool and Lazio: Brothers in bitter jealousy
There’s no real way I can spin this introduction, so I’ll just be honest. Liverpool and Lazio’s performances this weekend against Chelsea and Inter Milan respectively were two of the worst and most disgraceful performances I’ve seen in several years watching football.
Liverpool had to beat Chelsea at Anfield on Sunday to preserve their fading chances of finishing 4th and grabbing the lucrative Champions League revenue that position brings. Having lost to Atletico Madrid in the Europa League semi-final days earlier, it was the Reds’ final chance at a dignified end to what has been a torrid season.
In Italy, Lazio remain in danger of relegation down to Serie B and needed at least something from their game against the Italian champions Inter to avoid the worrying prospect of the drop.
But in both games, the key issue for both clubs was not their own end of season ambitions, no matter how lowly. Far from it. In the scenarios thrown up by two devilishly mischievous fixture lists, both Liverpool and Lazio had ulterior motives going into their weekend games – darker premises at work that altered both the supporters’ and, arguably, the teams’ application and will to win.
For Liverpool and Lazio victory, however helpful to their own ends, was unthinkable. With just a few games remaining in the Premier League and Serie A, the prospect of the reds’ and sky blues’ main rivals Manchester United and AS Roma getting huge leg-ups in their own quests for silverware were the flipside of a coin that ultimately tempered Liverpool and Lazio’s natural desire to strive for victory at all costs.
For Liverpool, beating Chelsea – an enemy the Anfield faithful has become familiar with in recent years after endless encounters both domestically and in the Champions League – could bring with it the ultimate pain: handing Manchester United momentum in the race for the league title.
For Lazio likewise. With crosstown rivals AS Roma, Lazio share one of the most intense inter-city derbies in world football. With Roma lingering just below Inter in the league table and waiting to pounce on any slip-ups from Mourinho and co, a Lazio win would have handed their biggest enemies the Scudetto on a golden platter.
Both sets of supporters were reluctant to see their team win. Polls canvassing supporters of the Merseyside team found that a good proportion wanted nothing to do with a result that could hand Manchester United league trophy number 19 – 1 ahead of Liverpool’s old record.
Meanwhile in Rome, rumours swirled that Lazio’s ultras had issued ’statements’ warning their own players the penalties of helping out Roma, while in the bowels of the Stadio Olimpico banners held aloft by Lazio supporters rang hearty in their praise for Mourinho and co and chants of “if you win we’ll beat you up” rained down from the terraces.
Against such a backdrop emerged two of the most disgraceful, shoddy attempts at football the top flights in both England and Italy can have seen for some time.
Liverpool were absolutely abysmal against Chelsea. Tiredness always strikes me as a bizarre excuse when used by professional athletes at the very peak of physical fitness, but it was used ad lib by Rafa Benitez and co in the build-up to the Chelsea game.
Fair enough, extra time defeat against Atletico may have added to the weary feeling in Liverpool legs. But some of the football from Liverpool was so bad only the apparent integrity of the English game can prevent one wondering if this offering were not in some way contrived. On a far too regular basis passes were misplaced, runs were lazy and shots were misfired – none more so than Alberto Aquilani’s attempt at a rasping shot in the second half that somehow managed to career backwards straight to a Chelsea shirt.
And, to top it all off, Captain Fantastic Steven Gerrard himself played the delicious through ball that put Didier Drogba clean through for the opening goal. Well in fairness, Gerrard did say he wanted to play for Chelsea.
In Italy meanwhile Lazio, possessing at least the excuse that they do not claim to be a top class side, flapped their way limply to a lifeless 2-0 defeat to Inter. A banner raised by Lazio’s fans declaring “Oh Noooo” ironically at each goal encapsulated perfectly the feeling that, really, for Lazio this was a defeat to match even the sweetest of victories. Eat that, Totti et al.
“The most embarrassing display seen since the infamous 80 minute kickabout between Germany and Austria in the 1982 World Cup,” declared Football Italia writer Susy Campanale after Lazio’s 2-0 loss, and few who saw it would be able to disagree. Unless they had watched the game at Anfield a few hours earlier, of course.
Tribalism can do funny things to a football supporter. On the evidence of these two occasions, perhaps to players as well.
(photo via blog-idman-yurdu on Flickr)
AS Roma, English Premier League, Italian Serie A, Lazio, Liverpool, Manchester UnitedShare This Post!
About Jonathan F
The boss of this here... Creator and Editor of Just-Football.com, world football analyst, watcher, freelancer and all-round enthusiast. French football analyst for Football Radar. Write for FourFourTwo, have also written for ITV, When Saturday Comes and others.
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Written by someone who obviously didn’t see the match or at least doesn’t understand the sport and certainly doesn’t understand the circumstances.
Don’t give up the day job. This stuff isn’t your strong suit.
Kindly explain the circumstances to me please Neil, I’m intrigued to work out which bit I failed to understand…
Fwiw, I don’t think Liverpool players set out to lose on purpose or anything.
But the atmosphere around the ground and the fans’ desire not to see their rivals win another league title (as the various banners at Anfield suggested – Cockneys for a day – makes one question the extent to which Liverpool players were bothered about the match as much as they would have been had Chelsea been in town on any other day.
You said ‘Tiredness always strikes me as a bizarre excuse when used by professional athletes at the very peak of physical fitness’
Someone who understood the game would not say that about a team playing Chelsea, less than three days after a European tie that went into extra time.
Your blog was just a chance to have a pop at Liverpool. There’s lots of lazy writing like your right now. Do you have anything original to say?
What on earth are you talking about? I don’t know about Lazio but there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to question the integrity of the Liverpool performance. They were just beaten by a better, fitter team.
What you are suggesting in this piece is pretty appalling to be honest.
By the Way,
With regards to the ‘various banners’
One banner was seen ‘Cockney 4 A Day’ it said.
A number of Liverpool websites have picked up on that particular banner and fans are disgusted and ashamed of the ‘IRISH IDIOTS’ who brought to the game.
It is very widely agreed that there is no place at Anfield for garbage like that.
Nobody, apart from the obvious idiots who made it actually found it amusing.
That banner represented TWO people the other tens on thousand were ashamed of it.
Try researching the fans opinions of matters before casting judgement.
Ian,
Thankyou for your points. That is quite interesting about the banner being condemned. Could you provide a link please?
What of the ‘Gary Neville or Chelsea?’ banner reportedly on display?
Re the polls btw, here is the link reporting on one such poll: http://www.epltalk.com/liverpools-woes-compounded-chelsea-almost-there/19018
Right…so now Liverpool are responsible for Man Utd not winning the title..? Such utter bullshit! Was always led to believe that the title was won over 38 games, and that generally the best team wins. So, it’s fantastic to learn that actually the only game that mattered this season was the game at Anfield yesterday. Turns out the season is all about 1 game. Such is the spin Fergie, Neville and the fans will put on this one. This is delusional gibberish from a bitter Man Utd fan. If you’d watched Liverpool all season you would see that yesterday was not a one-off…we’ve witnessed performances like that on more than one occasion this season. The reason Man Utd won’t win the title is because they were beaten home and away by their chief rival for the title and have lost more games than them as well. For years, Liverpool fans have had to put up with accusations of bitterness and jealousy over Man Utd’s success, quite a lot of it justified. But, to even begin to try and shift blame for their failure to win this year’s title away from their own door, that is shambolic. It’s as bitter as any thing we’ve shown towards them. It’s completely pathetic. They fucked up…not Liverpool. Not our responsibility to win them the title. And, over the course of a season, you generally get what you deserve. Seems a huge dollop of sour grapes are coming the way of Old Trafford!
Right, for starters, Liverpool had lost about 18 games in all competitions BEFORE Chelsea arrived on Sunday.
Chelsea are in great form.
Put the two together and it was obvious Chelsea were going to get a result.
Ferguson said it himself, he never expected Liverpool to win after the season they are having.
Nothing corrupt about Liverpool losing to Chelsea, it was 100% down to the fact that Chelsea, although not on fire themselves on Sunday, were still to good for Liverpool.
I suppose Gerrard ‘deliberately’ passed the ball back and Carragher ‘faked injury’ to weaken the defence then.
Sounds just like a Man Utd fan looking to blame someone for Chelsea seemingly on their way to a title.
By the way, exactly WHEN and WHERE did these ‘polls’ take place.
Terrible attempt at journalism.
Sour Grapes.
What a lot of utter bollocks!
Liverpools tired performance had a lot more to do with the fact that they didn’t have a recognised left back, right back or striker. That and the fact that they played 120 minutes against Athletico just 2 1/2 days before.
If you want conspiracy theories. How come Utd get to know the Liverpool Chelsea result before they play? Hmm. Why do Sky always seem to reschedule televised games to suit the purple nosed one? Why to the Premier League allow them to? How come Steve Bruces comments after the Sunderland game all seem to be about Utd.?
United fans shouldn’t be looking for conspiracy theories, we helped you out in 95 but you couldn’t take the opportunity.
Think of it as progression. Last year you weren’t the best team in Europe. This year you probably won’t be the best team in England and next year you won’t be the best team in Manchester. Or rather just outside.
Liverpool are poor and have been all season. Up until the goal it was fairly even. Liverpool just lost their heads after they went down a goal. What are they going to play for? There was NO CHANCE liverpool were to get 4th, Man City and Spurs play on weds. Either way someone going to get a point or win and that would make 4th out of reach.
Hi gaga, thanks. I welcome and accept your point. But a Liverpool win on Sunday and a Man City v Spurs draw would have given Liverpool a small chance of getting 4th. An incredibly low chance, I’ll gladly admit, but a chance all the same.
Perhaps, as everyone seems to be suggesting, Liverpool really are just that bad then. But I thought they’d offer more against one of their main rivals at home.
“devilishly mischievous fixture lists”
Heh? So the Italian and English fixture planners have it in for Roma and Man U respectively, do they?! You’re thinking much too hard, mate. Tell me, does it give you a headache?
Forever in our Shadow.
Sigh.. mischievous in that they threw up some incredible conundrums for supporters heading into the last few games.
United wanted Liverpool to win. Liverpool wanted Chelsea to win. Lazio wanted Inter to win. Roma wanted Lazio to win.
Therefore, mischievous and intriguing in the way it all transpired.
This is a shameful piece of sports reporting. Most of us were not even expecting a full strength line up. We bossed the game and had the better chances before SG’s blunder. We had no decent replacement on the bench thanks to our two “Dracula brothers” [owners]. If the intention was to lose, Rafa would have played a reserve 11 from the start and no one amongst the supporters would have blamed him for that. He played the best 11, we could have taken the lead after a splendid strike from Aquilani that hit the bar. So how can someone pretending to be a football reporter come out with such senseless rubbish, unless one is on Fergie’s payroll! If Gerrard can be accused of a deliberate back pass, why can’t other possibilities of unfair practices be ruled out?
hmm, so I guess man u’s 2-1 home defeat to Chelsea or the 1-0 away defeat should be questioned. Face it Chelsea were better than the rest of us this year… These sour grapes are appalling. Awful article. Liverpool’s game with Chelsea should never have been the early kick off (makes you wonder if rather than Liverpool’s performance should be reviewed it’s the fixture list as man u always seem to be favoured – in this case they would know what was expected of them before they kicked off), but we’re one of the only leagues in Europe to offer no assistance to our teams in Europe and when you have a tiring 120 min match, to then and play the best team in the country (who are well rested) barely 60 hours later is ridiculous. The say tiredness is a poor excuse makes me think you’ve barely ever moved way from your sofa. It’s fine if both teams played Thursday but they didn’t & there is no way you can compete against a talented team that quickly after such a game.
This is a very poor ill thought out piece. Man Utd have had all season to get the points they needed. Liverpool have overperformed given the net transfer spend for 5 years and it’s finally caught up with them together with the emergence of other contenders – Spurs, Villa, and albeit through buying a team, Man City. We had an emotional and draining match on Thursday night which will have hit the players physically and mentally. The club is in dire straits, up for sale (at a ludicrous price because of the lies and greed of the owners), and the managers future hangs in the balance. But you choose to ignore the facts in the interests of your story, even to the extent of generalising the views of 2 “fans” and one banner and atributing it to the whole ground. I’ve been a fan for 40 years and I know I and all the people I know wanted us to beat Chelsea. We played wel for 30 minutes, let a stupid goal in and that took the heart out of the team. What was it you were expecting Liverpool to do given the circumstances in which we were playing? Turn out another performance like Istanbul?
Personally I don’t want Man U to win the title. But I don’t want Chelsea to buy it either. Which it appears they’ve done. But that has NOTHING to do with Liverpool, and I’m much more interested in how we can restructure and get rid of these Yank leeches as quickly as possible than give a toss about whether we help Manu or Chelsea win a title..
GARBAGE , I WAS AT ANFIELD AND UP TO THE FIRST GOAL CHELSEA LOOKED NORMAL AND WE HAD THE BETTER OF THE PLAY ONCE THE GOAL WENT IN OUR HEADS DROPPED AND WE FADED AFTER THE 3 INJURIES WE THEN WENT WITH A 19 YEAR OLD IN DEFENCE AND NGOG (who should never wear a red shirt again) AND A LAZY BABEL…. FULL STRENGTH CHELSEA OVER RAN US FROM THEN . BUT , RAFA OUT AND TAKE UR CRAP WITH U !!
Just to be clear, we picked up as many points Vs Chelsea as Manchester United. Wanna know why they wont win the title? That right there.
I’m sorry but this article is absurd.
To even suggest that all Liverpool fans would rather see their team lose than see United win another title is preposterous.
I, like the overwhelming majority of our fans, was hoping for a Liverpool victory. Sadly, the 120 minutes we had played just a couple of days earlier seemed to have affected us quite badly.
That and we had a makeshift defence, were without our star striker and had a captain who has put in the worst season in his entire career.
That being said, for the first 30 minutes, we were more than holding our own against one of the top two sides in the country, who are in very good form compared to our own.
Only a monumental cock-up by the aforementioned captain seperated us for the first half. Second half, we were poor.
But if you had watched us this season, you would know that we’ve been just as poor in a fair few of those games.
But rather than looking at the short-comings of United’s own performance this season, you saw fit to label Liverpool as the crowning subjects of Chelsea’s title.
The table doesnt lie. Over 38 games, the best team will win. At the moment that is Chelsea.
I’m not particularly fond of Chelsea so when I say they were simply alot better than us, that hurts me more than these conspiracy theories.
We have been dreadful this season and have our own problems to deal with, without having to put up with these baseless accusations.
So if Utd win the League can Ancelotti go knocking on Mick Mccarthys door and and start asking for compensation for Wolves fielding a weakend side vs Utd earlier in the season and giving them an easy three points….or had that slipped your memory…..
The ‘Chelsea or Gary Neville’ banners were in the Chelsea end.
“We try to look at the game from as wide a perspective as possible and analyse this great sport with a degree of reason and balance we feel is not always to be found in the sometimes over-reactionary, Hollywood headline-seeking era of the modern game.”
How does this article, which I think even Red Issue would have had serious reservations about posting, come within the site’s remit as quoted above?
All season journalists and fans of rivals clubs have gloried in the decline of Liverpool and extolled the paucity of their play. Now they’re expected to change around a season of distinct under achievement and produce a performance not seen all year against a side rushing headlong towards the title?
Couple that with the fact that they played an intensely draining (physically and emotionally) 120 minutes on Thursday night. Indeed they looked out on their feet well before normal time ended as a couple of non-Premier League supporters I was watching the game with commented. Up until the Drogba goal on Sunday they were the better team of the two, then all confidence and energy drained away as Chelsea grabbed the game by the throat.
Throw in the complete loss of the first choice back four and the only striker worth shaking a stick at, and it’s hardly surprising we saw a Liverpool defeat.
And Jonathan your “Polls canvassing supporters of the Merseyside team found that a good proportion wanted nothing to do with a result” … you’ve only provided a source for one article from a general football site which itself quotes an unsourced poll of “fans in Singapore”.
Bitter and misinformed article.
As professional players, the Liverpool players can be expected to be ready for another match after the Madrid match, but they can’t be expected to match a Chelsea team who had a week’s rest.
It doesn’t matter how fit you are, if you’re playing a team equally as fit as you, who’ve also had a much longer rest, they’re always going to be more energized.
Funny how basically every single response from Liverpool supporters trying to ridicule me go along exactly the same lines as what I suggested – that Liverpool were absolutely awful.
The rest of the abuse just descends into anti-Man United bashing, which again stops only narrowly short of backing up my point – that a decent proportion of Liverpool fans would rather have seen their team lose than United win the title.
Someone asked for further evidence. Here’s this from the Guardian:
“In a national newspaper yesterday morning one of their number wrote that anyone who wanted Liverpool to win today had no right to call himself a fan of the club. What strange times these are.”
This article, and several comments in it also back that up:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/may/01/liverpool-chelsea-dilemma
As I said above, the integrity of the English game means one cannot truly question the commitment of Liverpool players. But if the fans are the 12th man, and your fans are as apathetic as Liverpool were on Sunday or outright opposing in their support as Lazio supporters were, the overall effect on players is fair topic for discussion.
What’s funny is how you read what you want to. At the end of the day, the 11 men on pitch count. They did not throw that game and you admit it yourself. No matter what some stupid fans claim to think, the Liverpool and Lazio players are professionals and are paid to win and not to lose. You are nobody to generalize how people feel about their clubs and you will remain nobody. The Guardian is reporting how it is an emotional bind for some fans (note: it says and you quote “ONE of their number”) but for others its another must-win game. Have you considered that Liverpool do not want to lose even the Europa League place they are clinging onto? Winning this game would have guaranteed that, winning this game might have even gotten them 5th or 6th, which is better than where they are now. Champions win their own titles, they do not look for favours from other teams. If you want to talk about how the fans behaved in the respective games, perhaps you should be at the stadium, its not so easy to see that on the TV. You say that people bashing your article would like to see Man United lose the title, yes this is true. But like I said you only read what you want to. The same people also wrote that they never want to see their team lose.
“To even suggest that all Liverpool fans would rather see their team lose than see United win another title is preposterous.”- Dan
” I’ve been a fan for 40 years and I know I and all the people I know wanted us to beat Chelsea.” pete
You have yet to point out more than one of the “Various Banners” you “saw” at Anfield.
You can have your opinion all you want. You can write as many things as you want. But know this, take the criticism and take the blame for writing something that is inciteful and misinformed. An opinion is how you feel but you have no right to tell people how they should feel.
An extension of my point on Goal: “Roma would have done exactly the same if the roles had been reversed, and for those who complain that this is an ugly trait of Italian football I invite them to watch Liverpool’s 2-0 home loss against Premier League leaders Chelsea that has almost definitely denied hated-rivals Manchester United.
Just like Lazio, Liverpool exerted some camera effort in the first half-an-hour before mysteriously jogging around the pitch for the second two thirds of the match. Their captain Steven Gerrard even quite amusingly gift-wrapped Chelsea their first goal with a 30-yard backpass straight to Didier Drogba.”
Anyway, we’re kind of going round in circles now (Liverpool supporters and I both agree Liverpool were abysmal, some wanted their team to win some didn’t) so I’m going to close the comments for a brief period.