Barnsley > Inter Milan ???

I haven't posted much on Liverpool in the last couple of months because, well, they've sucked something awful. They were ousted from the Carling Cup by Chelsea in the quarterfinals, their atrocious league form has them 19 points below league leaders Arsenal, and worse, out of the top 4. Beyond that, there is a point of argument over which FA Cup round was where they truly bottomed out: In the fifth round, losing to Coca-Cola Championship mid-table team Barnsley at home (roughly the equivalent of the Red Sox losing to their AA affiliate), or in the fourth round when they fell behind twice to semi-professional team Havant and Waterlooville (roughly the equivalent of the NBA's Western Conference All-Stars falling behind early to a high school JV squad) before eventually winning, 5-2.

Anyway, all this led up to what was likely to be the beginning of the end of Liverpool's 2008 run in Europe. They faced Inter Milan, a team that is 11 points clear in Serie A that had one loss on the entire season in all competitions. The stage was set for a mild slaughter. As with all Champions League, I followed it online via BBC since I'm at work during the start of the matches. The picture above, in case you don't fully recognize it, is Zinedine Zidane's infamous World Cup 2006 Final headbutt on Italian Marco Materazzi. My favorite moment of following the match online was when the words: "RED CARD: MARCO MATERAZZI" appeared in the 30th minute. Of course, that also meant that Liverpool would now almost be expected to put up a goal, which would be necessary to have hope of going to Milan in March and come back out alive. By the time I got home and had changed, the match was in minute 87 and Liverpool had a crucial 1-0 lead, thanks to Dirk Kuyt's surprising decision to not be terrible (just for today) and convert on an 85th minute chance from sub and unheralded star of the match Jermaine Pennant. Tommy Smith, calling the game for ESPN2, saw the continued possession by the Reds and wondered how miraculous a 2-0 result could be if they could grab another late goal. Cue Pennant to Gerrard, who head faked two defenders to the left, which gave him enough of an opening (by inches) to move right, shoot by those two defenders, past the outstretched hand of the goaltender, off the far post and in.

So, as the lovely Transitive Property of Substitution says, Liverpool beats Inter Milan days after being defeated by Barnsley, so clearly Barnsley would have taken the Italians out with even less difficulty. As Ron Burgundy would say, "It's science."