Champions League: Three Halves of Crap

By: Martha | February 22nd, 2007

Figo, during the kicking-ass days. Let’s focus on the positive, shall we? How great was the first half of the Inter-Valencia game? Man was that fun to watch. Inter dominated every part of the field, and were all over the Valencia goal — a 3-0 lead at half wouldn’t have been harsh on the Spaniards, it was that lopsided. Plus, Figo was fantastic! When was the last time a team had to resort to just hacking him down because they couldn’t stop him? Five years ago? Stankovic, meanwhile, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, was doing his best Beckham, sprinting endlessly all over the pitch. I finally decided after Cambiasso went off that maybe he had been covering for the gimpy (?) Argentine, but whatever the reason it was awesome to watch, if only because of his insane intensity.

But then, sadly, the teams came out for the second half, and it all went to hell. I don’t know what Flores said to his team during the break, but Valencia came right at Inter almost from the first second. Of course, their success in getting back into the game was significantly aided by Inter’s decision to go a bit crap (apart from Maicon, who was on fire), but still — the performance was pretty impressive.

After the dust had settled, Inter had a draw but Valencia had two away goals, which is more than a little troubling. As Paolo and Ruby sorted out in the comments last night, if Inter can’t get a win in the return leg (and the Spaniards are nearly unbeatable at home), they’ll need at least a 3-3 draw. Oh dear oh dear.

Regarding the Roma-Lyon game, meanwhile, it appears to be a case of the less said, the better. The really sad thing is that desperate Roma and Lyon fans — including Laurie of brilliant France national team blog — were forced to pay $9.99 to those thieves at UEFA for the privilege of watching a goalless draw that featured 11 cards (thank you, Mike Riley). Man alive. I’ve never been so happy a game wasn’t on TV, it sounds profoundly depressing.

So, in sum: Things look worrying at best for Inter and Roma. Fingers cross for giant away victories in the return leg but this was not a good day.