And the final score is Liverpool – 0, Juventus – 0. Next stop is Anfield against Chelsea.

Heh, there’s nothing fantastic about that scoreline, but soccer hasn’t been this interesting for the last couple of years. Liverpool has made it into the semi finals of the Champion’s League and it’s been a very, very long time since that has happened. What’s more it’s an all English affair with Chelsea. This morning’s match was an emotional one, as on 1985 at Heysel stadium was one of soccer’s most tragic finals. The same two teams were pitted against each other with Juventus winning the match 1-0 through a penalty. However, that win came at a price when fans from both sides rioted and 39 fans died in the ensuing chaos. English clubs were subsequently banned from the tournament for 5 years.

Chelsea only proceeded to the semi finals yesterday, losing to Bayern Munich 3-2 but winning on a 6-5 aggregate. Heh, an English semi final. It’s interesting as English soccer in Europe has been in the decline since the Heysel incident, and I’m pretty sure only Manchester United has won the Champion’s League (it was known as some other cup back then) since then. The only other team to reach close to that result was Chelsea last year, only to be denied when Claudio Ranieri made a tactical error against Monaco.

I predicted it would be an interesting year in soccer this year. Heh, well, you don’t need to be clairvoyant to know it would be. Two of English soccer’s biggest names hired new managers, both with pretty good track records. For Liverpool, Rafael Benitez had the Spanish League and UEFA cup title under his name the prior year he was in Valencia. For Chelsea, it was Jose Mourinho who steered Porto to 2 Portuguese League wins, an UEFA cup and subsequently the Champion’s League.

Chelsea has been dominating at home and in Europe over the last few months. I watched the thrilling match against Barcelona that ended 4-2. Considering that Barcelona was at the top of the Primera La Liga (Spanish League), it was an open contest to who would proceed to the next round. Liverpool had an easier trip to its current state through Bayer Leverkusen and among the Italian teams, Juventus is probably not as intimidating as AC Milan is.

Heh, from now until the finals, I predict that the final match up will be Chelsea vs AC Milan. Heh, I’d say that the teams left are representative of their respective leagues. There is now Chelsea (top of English Premier League), AC Milan (top of Italian League and most likely will proceed to the semis), PSV Eindhoven (if not mistaken, should be top of the Dutch league) and with only Liverpool as a bit of a blip as they’re still struggling to qualify for next season’s Champion’s League.

Chelsea and AC Milan. Chelsea has been the team to score goals at will while AC Milan has so far kept out a lot of goals. It’s like the Chinese saying of spear and shield. A salesman tries to sell a spear that can cut through anything and days later, tries to sell a shield that can repel anything. Put them together and what happens? Heh, we’ll know when the final is played sometime in May.