What can I say that you haven’t already thought?
What a game, what a night, thank you Juventus and thank you Craig Bellamy!
The match:
The first half was a tense affair with both side surrendering possession easily and few chances being created. But the over eager German referee wasn’t helping things.
We should have had a penalty early on when Bellamy was clearly fouled by Gyan, but the referee somehow managed to award a corner.
The Welshman then proceeded to waste the best chance of the half, toe poking the ball straight at the Dutch keeper after beating the defence with a superbly timed run.
But Bellamy was not to be denied, when in injury time at the end of the first period the old partnership was back in action.
A long ball was flicked on by Alan Shearer, who caused the home defence no end of problems with his aerial power, and Bellamy latched on to his header and finished from an acute angle.
One up at half-time and its 0-0 in the
Four minutes into the second half and Kieron Dyer robs a defender and finds Hugo Viana, who curls his shot into the bottom corner.
2-0 and we’re going through.
But then news from Kyiv, Dyanmo have taken the lead – we’re not going through.
We’re in control of the game and Bellamy is again denied by Lodewijks in the Feyenoord goal.
News from Kyiv, Salas has equalized for Juventus and then amazingly Zalayeta gives the Italians the lead. We’re going through.
But then it all starts to go wrong, the excellent Argentinian substitute Bombarda pulled one back after some poor defending.
Then in the 70th minute disaster strikes and Lurling equalizes for the Dutch team, after a poor defensive header from Dyer is played back into the danger area. At least one Feyenoord forward is offside, but the comical referee doesn’t spot it.
It looks like we’re going out and with Feyenoord dominating the game, we may not even make the UEFA Cup.
The Dutch referee turns down penalty appeals from the
But we looked dangerous on the break and both Bellamy and Jenas miss good chances to win the game.
Into the 91st minute Dyer breaks through the Feyenoord defence and looks certain to score, only for Lodewijks to make a great diving save. But the ball breaks to Bellamy and he smashes his shot from an acute angle off the keeper and into the back of the net.
We hold on through another three minutes of injury time and Juventus hold on in Kyiv – We are through!
No team has ever lost their first three Champions League games and qualified for the second phase before – its one of the greatest achievements in the history of the club.
Bring on