This is Anfield

Over the weekend, my beloved Liverpool Football Club overcame the crappiest ownership in professional sports since Major League to defeat the Yankees of soccer: Manchester United.

Manchester had not lost at home all season and had conceded only one goal in their past fifteen English Premier League games. They were coming off a mid-week thrashing of Italian champions Internazionale Milan and led Liverpool by 7 points in the standings going into the Saturday showdown. A loss for Liverpool would have ended their dreams of winning the league and doomed them to a 20th consecutive year without a league title.

A Little Background

There are no playoffs in English soccer. The goal is to be the best team in the league over the course of the entire season. You receive 3 points for a win and 1 point for a tie. There are 20 teams in the Premier League and you play each team twice (at home and away), for a total of 38 games played. The three teams with the fewest points at the end of the season are relegated to the second division, which sends up its three best teams. The best four teams in the league win the right to play in the Champions League, which pits the best teams in every major European league against each other.

There are eleven starting players and seven substitute players for each game. Each team can use up to three substitutes during the game.

Going into Saturday's game, Liverpool sat second in the league and were discounted from the title race by almost every pundit and analyst.

Why is Manchester United the Yankees?

Manchester United spends a lot of money on players. Their biggest off-season acquisition, Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov, cost them over 30 million pounds. And he didn't even make the starting lineup against Liverpool.

The Manchester United manager, Sir Alex Ferguson, is revered across the sport for the many championships and trophies he has won. However, he has always done this with plenty of expensive talent at his disposal. In the 90s, Manchester United was respectable because they won using plenty of homegrown talent. As their teams got older, they started to spend like crazy in order to stay on top. Nowadays the focal point of their team is the A-Rod of soccer: Cristiano Ronaldo.

Caption Unnecessary

Undoubtedly the most skilled offensive player in the sport, Ronaldo is also a petulant prick who thinks that the world revolves around him and that Madonna is attractive (wait, maybe that last one is just A-Rod...)

Why I Never Walk Alone

Moments after the best Champions League Final ever played

By contrast, Liverpool is led by hometown hero Steven Gerrard. While Ronaldo may be the best offensive player on Earth, there is little doubt that Gerrard is the best all-around player in the sport, a fact recently confirmed by Zinedine Zidane (formerly the best player in the sport and headbutter extraordinaire).

Jesus walked on water, Torres doesn't even need the H. He can walk on two Os just fine... but he does need watches. Lots of them.

Liverpool is led by the world's best striker, Fernando Torres. While Ronaldo plies his trade from a wide position and Gerrard stalks the center of the pitch, Torres uses a combination of speed, ridiculous skill, and unfathomably lethal finishing to dominate as few lone strikers can. Not only that, but he does it all while remaining the beautiful and my mancrush (everybody gets one) (Shut up!) (Power tools! Babes! Beer! Literacy! Cars! Caddyshack! Raaaaaaah!)

Thus the stage is set for this epic showdown. Manchester wins (at home), and they would have a lot of trouble losing the title race. Liverpool wins and they are right back into the thick of things, just 4 points back of the vaunted Manchester menace and its hooker-loving, car-crashing mohawked leader Ronaldo.

To be continued tomorrow with a brilliant match summary...

Until then, here is another hook to get you interested in the sport:



Jose Mourinho, currently the manager of Internazionale Milan, burst onto the soccer scene when he won the 2004 Champions League with Portugese side Porto. He became the manager of English Premier League side Chelsea FC in June 2004 and dubbed himself "The Special One" in his first press conference.

"Please don't call me arrogant, but I'm European champion and I think I'm a special one."

Mourinho became famous for his (sorry Jose, but it's true) arrogant antics, including throwing his 2005-06 EPL championship medal into the stands (he was immediately handed a 2nd medal, which he also threw. into. the stands.

The point is, he's a prick. But he is also the focal point of the funniest thing going on YouTube. Enjoy: