The Sporting calendar

An early blast from the pool, put the skids under Real as they struggled to hold the ball and play.
Torres looked sharp as he (for once) played off the last man, a neat turn early on leaving him 8 yards out and 1 on 1 with the keeper, who saved well with his legs, Torres should have scored.
Another pool attack from a corner, saw the ball come out to Mascherano, who hit a looping half volley, heading for the top corner, which the keeper saw late and produced a fantastic save, pushing the ball onto the bar.
The keeper was on fire, until he was left unprotected after 16 minutes.

The Real defence let a long ball bounce and it looped over the Real number 3, who turned to face his own goal with Kuyt and Torres breathing down his neck, Torres touched his shoulder momentarily and he went down, Kuyt took a touch and pulled the ball back along the 6 yard box, where Torres or Gerrard were waiting to pounce unmarked. The keeper had no chance.

Liverpool continued to look sharp, closing down well and forcing mistakes in Real’s passing game.

Babel looked lively and floated a ball to the right edge of the area, as Kuyt headed it back in, the unfortunate Heinze (once a pool target) raised his arm as the ball looked to have come off his shoulder, the linesman behind Kuyt flagged immeadiately for a penalty, which Gerrard made no mistake, sending the keeper the wrong way. Less than half an hour played and Liverpool were 2-0 up!

Real started to come back into the game a bit more, ex Portsmouth player Diarra looks impressive bringing the ball out of defence and rarely misplaces a pass.
Real playing much better as half time arrives.

Liverpool flew out of the blocks again at the start of the second half, looking dangerous on the break, a sweeping move had the ball at babel’s feet, for once he hit the byline and dinked in a left foot cross, which bounced right in front of the “running from deep” Gerrard who controlled it brilliantly first time to fire into the roof of the net.

Real didn’t switch off and came back at liverpool more and more going close on a number of occasions, the ball just wouldn’t go in for them, and when it finally did, they had two players offside!
Real’s passing game through the middle was causing Liverpool problems every time they came forward, Lucas came on, but had little effect, until Liverpool brought on the pocket rocket!
Jay Spearing, who has been with the club since he was seven years old and captained the youth team to the youth cup, from the position of centre back stemmed the flow of attacks through the middle!

Box to box he played, any pool fans remember sammy lee in his playing days – exactly the same he is. A tigerish midfielder with a great engine and an eye for finding spaces in the opponents half, he had the crowd chanting his name after 20 minutes!

Pool swept up field to score a fourth, Dossena making up for his booking, getting free in the box, firing under the keeper’s hand to make it 4-0.

All in all a very satisfying game for the pool, who move into the last eight.
I would still question why Torres can’t be lazy, whilst sitting on the last man in defence, of the four times he did it in the second half, he did this, he got clear twice and won free kicks the other two times.
This was the sharpest I’ve seen him in a long time, perhaps he is now fit?
Arbeloa had a cracking game, very solid, Mascherano will be missing for the next round as he picked up a yellow card and will be suspended.
Lets hope that Liverpool avoid English opposition in the next round, with Chelsea coming through their away leg against Juventus, Man Utd looking unstoppable and Arsenal on a run, the one danger team looks to be Bayern Munich, who followed up their 5-0 first leg win with a 7-1 thrashing of Sporting Lisbon!