If You Cut Me, Will I Not Bleed Red?

Two official Liverpool players among the thousands of unofficial ones.
Picture from Soccernet.com

I watched the Liverpool-Arsenal match today, and once again, that has taken a few months off of my life.

I remember as a teenager staying up all those late nights to watch a soccer team halfway around the world that didn't even know I existed. My Mum would stumble down in the middle of the night, awoken by the lights or the noise, and she would ask, bewildered, "Why are you getting so upset about a football match that has nothing to do with you?"

I remember not being able to sit still - the agitated shaking of the legs, the jumps of frustration, even the anginal chest pains (I'm too young to have a heart attack!) of riding that roller-coaster which was called watching a Liverpool match.

And it was the same today. Three matches against Arsenal over the course of a week, and we were meeting them again in Anfield tonight to determine our Champions' League fortunes. There was heaps of leg-shaking and chest-paining to be done tonight!

And what a magical night it was! 1-1 at half time after the champagne football of Arsenal had opened up the Liverpool defence. And then Fernando Torres, El Nino (The Kid) popping up with that marvellous goal to make it 2-1 in the 69th minute. Liverpool had to hang on for a victory in the last 21 minutes, as another Arsenal goal would see them progress through on the away goals rule.

And it was a dazzling Owen-esque run from their own half by Arsenal's own Kid Theo Walcott, the New Hope of England, who squared off to Emmanuel Adebayor to slot in the goal that would break Liverpudlian hearts.

I was sitting there in silence again. The all too familiar feeling of disappointment associated with supporting this marvellous club stirred in me, and left me and my friend deflated. All the hopes for this season dashed once again. Another wait for next year.

But it was not over yet, and a burst of pace from Ryan Babel in the Arsenal box saw Liverpool earn a penalty and Steven Gerrard was Captain Fantastic again, keeping his cool to drive in the perfect penalty to the left hand corner of the goal.

And then, when Arsenal had thrown everybody forward in search for the goal that would take them through to the next round, a loose ball up the field found Ryan Babel again, who outpaced Cesc Fabregas to slot the ball past Manuel Almunia. His celebrations were muted, in respect to a club that he had supported as a boy, but a job had to be done tonight, and he had been professional about it.

A rapturous noise in Anfield and the familiar swell of "You'll Never Walk Alone" shook the Kop again on one of those magical European nights where the bitter taste of defeat had been converted to the sweet bliss of victory.

I have no intentions of extending commiserations to my friends who are Arsenal supporters. There was nothing to be ashamed about in their performance not just from tonight but for the whole season. Unfortunately, tonight, the game was decided by the man in black once again, and they have every right to feel hard done.

In all honesty, I have only words of praise for the Arsenal football club and their fans. Arsenal are only one of the other English clubs in the top four with no airs about them or their supporters, and Wenger has done amazing things with very little money and a team of brilliant youngsters that no one had given a second thought to at the beginning of the season. They are the shining light for soccer and are the word 'Beautiful' in the term 'The Beautiful Game'.

But tonight, at least, belongs to Liverpool, and to the stopped hearts and the collective lives of all Liverpool fans who have been shortened once more by the dramatic Comeback Kids of soccer.

You Will Never Walk Alone.