As I've said before, I don't usually write a match report unless I was at the game, but as I don't know anyone who made the trip to Oporto, I've had to do it myself based on what I saw on the telly. The one thing that really amuses me about watching on the beeb, is that they always feel the need to apologise to the nation for the lack of entertainment in these games. Quite frankly what did they expect when they bought the rights to these games? Houllier sends his side out to do a job, not to play pretty football and lose. We are not that good a side that we can go away from home in Europe and totally dominate a game. We play to our strenghts, which is to keep it tight and rely on one of our gifted frontmen to nick something at the other end. If the Beeb don't like that, tough shit.
I'd rather channel five had kept the rights to our games anyway, as despite Johnathon Pearce being somewhat annoying, at least he wants us to win and gets excited when we score. Motson, Davies and Brooking do all of their commentaries from the opposition's perspective. Comments such as "Well Nakata is giving Liverpool a few problems, but I'd like to see him further forward where he can do more damage" Then of course there's the stunned silence when we score. They don't even try to hide their disdain for us. Thank god for Jocky, as he's their only redeeming feature.
As for the game itself, it was awful, but I'm sure Gerard won't be complaining. I didn't think they looked up to much, and maybe we should have gone at them a bit, but our attacking play hasn't been great lately (one goal in our last four games) and the main thing is that we didn't lose. An away goal would have made me feel a lot more confident about the return leg though, as anything other than a win and we're out. If they were to score first would we be able to come back and score twice? We haven't done that all season (Liberec apart), so scoring the first goal will be crucial.
Once again the back four were outstanding. I couldn't separate Carra and Henchoz for the star man, but Babbel and Sami were excellent too. The media were all raving about Stevie G, and although he played pretty well, I've seen him play a lot better this season and not get the same recognition. I thought defensively he and Hamann protected the back four superbly, but in an attacking sense they did very little. There was that one great shot from Stevie in the second half, but aside from that the midfield were more concerned with defensive duties.
Owen and Fowler worked hard but had no support. Owen is still nowhere near his best, and it may not be until next season that we see him return completely to the way he was. He had one good chance, which he put straight at the keeper, but was otherwise starved of possession. The same goes for Fowler really. He hit that one shot well wide at full stretch, but other than that didn't have a look in. Their workrate can't be faulted though, and the second leg should see them receive a lot more support from midfield.
In the first half I felt that Vlad could turn out to be our match winner, as he looked in good form and was breaking well, but the second half he was anonymous as Porto started to dictate. We looked tired once again, and as the game wore on it was obvious that it would finish nil-nil. We need a bit more freshness to the attacking side of our game, and the return of Litmanen (and in a couple of weeks Berger) should provide that. I'd also be tempted to give Diomede a chance, as he simply has to be better than Ziege.
As for Porto, much had been made of their front three before the game, but Carra had Capucho in his pocket, Henchoz dealt with Pena expertly and Drulovic got nothing out of Babbel all night before he was subbed. They could be a lot more dangerous at Anfield next week though, particularly Pena, who looked as though he could be pretty useful if given more space to work in. He'll need to be watched.
Defensively, we didn't test them at all, but they lost influential skipper Jorge Costa, and he looks likely to miss the return leg, so they could be weakened there. His replacement was the Brazilian Aloisio, who must be about a hundred, as I can remember him playing for Barcelona when I was a kid. Surely the likes of Heskey and Owen will be too much for him to handle?
TEAM: Sander Westerveld; Markus Babbel, Sami Hyypia, Stephane Henchoz, Jamie Carragher; Vladimir Smicer, Steven Gerrard, Dietmar Hamann, Christian Ziege (Danny Murphy); Michael Owen (Nick Barmby), Robbie Fowler (Emile Heskey):
