Reading the papers is a joy today. Here are just a couple of snippets.
From the Times:
At the end, Davies asked for Alessandro Del Piero’s top as the venerable striker trudged off. The way the game had gone, it should have been the Italian requesting a souvenir instead. All who glittered last night wore white shirts, not gold.
This was, probably, surely, the greatest night in Fulham’s history and everyone who was here, except for the shell-shocked, silenced Juve supporters, will recall it time and time again.
They will recall the way in which Zamora, the much-maligned, much-criticised, and, at times, lumbering striker out-muscled the canny Cannavaro — using some of the defender’s own dark arts to create space — to chest down and volley past 39-year-old, third-choice goalkeeper Antonio Chimenti who went on to have an horrific evening.
They will recall two goals from Zoltan Gera and they will recall, above all, the way in which Clint Dempsey shimmied along the edge of the penalty area to drift the most exquisite of right-foot chips up and over Chimenti and into the top corner of the net.
As the ball arced through the air, it was unerring. It was almost as if time stood still for the breathless Fulham supporters and how their team deserved such a brilliant goal to win a brilliant match and cap a brilliant performance, a brilliant comeback.
And the Italian papers aren’t happy either. Brilliant.
While still basking in the glory of a wonderful evening, and god I’d love to have been at the Cottage. Some further thoughts.
1. We had to attack last night and look where it took us. memo to Roy – please attack more when playing away from home – the team is up to it.
2. On Cannavaro’s red card – the laws say ‘denying a goal scoring opportunity’ not ‘last man back’. The card may have been a bit harsh but we have been on the wrong side of harsh red cards in Europe – what goes around, comes around. And what about the holding, tugging, and rugby tackles when Juve were defending set plays – never seen anything quite so bad or blatant.
3.We have a very good chance of being in 2 finals, the Prem doesn’t matter much this year – we are not going to be relegated and will finish between 10th and 14th. So let’s rest player against Man City. 5 games in 14 days is too much, and the Spuds game is the one that matters. Put Zamora, Gera, Duff , Davies and Hangeland on the bench. Murphy and Greening can play in centre midfield. Give Okaka and Smalling a start. Elm as well if he is available.
4. The downside to all this is we have a much higher profile – which means the parasites will be looking to take our prize assets in the summer – Hodgson, Hangeland, Demsey (Zamora, Duff?).Hopefully they will all stay.
Now I’m off to the legion to celebrate and lord it over the other-Prem-team-supporting riff-raff.