A Pirlo free-kick deflected by Inzaghi (opps) at the stroke of half-time brought the momentum to Milan's side in which otherwise, Liverpool actually played well and might have taken the lead if they had that extra bit of quality in finishing up front. Gerard had a couple of long-range opportunities which he would've usually done well with, but he lacked the composure of a big-match player.
Jankulovski struggled to keep Pennant at bay w/o much support from the midfielders and Milan had a few close scares due to errors when he lost the ball as he lacked pace. He was eventually substituted by Kaladze as he was on a yellow. Xabi Alonso wasn't playing much as well, only making all the professional fouls to stop Milan from building up their attack, w/o receiving a yellow. (the referee seemed rather biased towards the Reds when it came to cards...) I just wonder why Rafa played Kuyt as a lone-striker when he's a link-player who plays well sitting behind a main striker.
Liverpool's tactic seemed to work well in the first half when they pushed a lot of players forward to stop Milan's flowing game. Milan seem to like to work the ball slowly from defence up and with slow defenders around, Liverpool players stumped the flow when they move between Milan's midfield and defence line. Liverpool had no choice but to open up in the 2nd half when they were one goal down and that gave Pirlo in particular, space and time to work with, to do his magic.
The moment of magic that made the difference, a well-timed ball from Kaka for Inzaghi to beat the offside trap and bring the ball near the by-line and stroking it under Reina's arm, breathtaking. I've never seen any striker in the EPL stroke a ball so gently, so full of class. EPL strikers tend to strike the ball, Inzaghi stroked the ball into the net in the Champions' League final eh, that's the difference. That's what Inzaghi is all about, he can't dribble or hold the ball when he's outside the box, can't take on defenders, but he's always there, at the right place and the right time. Absolutely deadly in the box. He took Milan 2-0 up and Kuyt pulled one back for Liverpool but that was all Liverpool could cheer about for their effort.
The first half's stats really show the difference between English and Italian teams. Milan had 2 shots, 2 on target whereas Liverpool had 5 shots, 1 on target. Lol, seems to me Italian teams always thrive on efficient play. Liverpool had the likes of Alonso, Gerrard and Riise as long-range specialists, Milan, matching them evenly with Seedorf, Pirlo and Kaka. Only Liverpool took a lot of long range efforts, of which only one (ironically from Peter Crouch in the 2nd half, eeewww) required a save from Dida.
