Gods didn’t smile on Liverpool here

May 24 2007 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

LIKE two years ago, Liverpool is waking up this morning with a sore head.

But this time it’s pounding with thoughts on how to recover from a rare trophyless season – a very different kind of Champions League final hangover.

Not that last night’s party – which ended with red shirts dotted around and staring forlornly into space like uninvited guests – should be forgotten.

It proved that centuries later they still come to Athens to worship the gods and it’s the kind of status that, until last night, was well deserved for Rafael Benitez and his team of courageous Olympians.

But the stuff about heroes is just mythology. All Greek to the harsh realities of modern-day football.

Because unlike the last lot of legendary figures to adorn these shores centuries ago, Liverpool are not superhuman. They merely extol to perfection the virtues that their manager insists are the keys to his phenomenal European success.

And they seemed to be doing it just fine again last night too – but sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes the trophy cabinet is just destined to be bare.

Even when things don’t go as disastrously wrong as they did in Istanbul in 2005, Benitez is still as vulnerable to the cold hard facts of football as anyone else.

It just goes to show that he’s not hiding some special formula that creates mythological monsters the ancient Greeks would be proud of.

The Spaniard is simply single-minded and ruthless in his approach, which is why a rebuilding of his squad was always scheduled for this summer whatever the outcome of last night’s attempts to bring a sixth European Cup to Anfield.

Benitez’s unflinching insistence on hard work and good staff just doesn’t give the media the soundbites they need when trying to crack the Spaniard’s codes. It’s just all too dull.