retired_aurie1201

thank Jai. I see that you too hold a spot in your heart for the KINGS OF EUROPE -- ynwa!

retired_aurie1201

The First of Many?
Date: Friday 23 July 2005
Venue: Georg-Melches Stadion, Essen
Weather: Dry, 57 F
Attendance: 15520

Though Liverpool FC had arrived at the lovely German town of Essen with much fanfare, and all the respect due the Champions Of Europe, after what can only be described as the complete and total drubbing of their beloved local team RW Essen, we quickly wore out our welcome. RW Essen was not a poor team by any stretch. Their recent success in the Northern Regional Division come off as clear champions last year, promised a competitive match for the combined LFC squad, and brought almost a record crowd to the Stadion. However, most of the competition was born of who could get their name in the stat sheet most.

We applauded Legear's run out with much enthusiasm, knowing that soon enough we too would be taking our place next to the senior squad members. Unfortunately for Legear, as soon as the whistle blew, he practically disappeared from the pitch, and through no fault of his own, was soon overshadowed by some great play on the other side of the pitch from senior members of the team.

Just 4 minutes into the game Milan Baros started off on a move that would serve as the intro to one of Liverpool’s most terrific individual performances witness in a long time. Riise headed off a weak attempt to push into the Liverpool area, and played a short ball to Baros standing not too far from the top of our circle. He proceeded to turn the Essen center back Haalstrup and full back Yildirim 4 times all the way up the length of pitch before coolly smashing a low 20 yard screamer to the left of the advancing keeper for the first goal of his truly sublime hatrick. The second came 6 minutes later, after Baros sent Kewell free on the left flank from Liverpool’s own half before racing into the Essen box and smashing a short cross from Kewell into the far post from an almost impossible angle; and the cap-stone came before the half hour mark, when Baros dummied a perfectly weighted Alonso through ball, dragging the whole of the Essen defense with him, and leaving Kewell to chase down field. Knowing what was on, Kewell held up the ball for Baros to race into the box with the defense following in shambles. In true Hollywood style, Baros timed his run at the cross to produce an amazingly acrobatic diving header, which even left the keeper clapping before pick the ball out of the far corner. The crowd might have been satisfied with the show on the evening had we stopped at just that, but soon the route was over, and the slaughter was on.

Sweeping changes at the half saw Bertini and Hobbs join 5 other players marking their spot in the lineup (including Crouch for Baros), but the defensive duo would have little to do for the remainder of the match, as Liverpool continued their ascendant offensive display.

Next to notch was Luis Garcia just 3 minutes after the restart when he took a Gerrard pass at half field, and attempted to duplicate Baros's feat of dribbling the length of the field to score. Really it was only a shadow of the incredible Baros dribble, as any of 3 Liverpool players had left their defensive marker behind and could have taken the Gerrard pass in an equally decisive manner to score.

Mark Noble made his debut in the 54th minute, and my heart sank to see him taking Gerrard spot on the field -- I would not be playing along side the Liverpool Captain this day either. I did come on 6 minutes after that, taking the center mid spot from Noble, pushing him to the left wing, where he would play a blinder for the remainder of the match.

The next to notch you say? Why, that was me! I would describe the chance taken as absolutely typical of what I would have to offer in the way of scoring for here on until the end of my footballing career. I will always have a good chance to beat my marker, no matter who, to a decent cross. I would have to work on making myself a better target, but this time my timing was on. In the 75th minute King Luis would turn provider for our 5th goal, working well with Cisse up the right flank to produce a crisp cross into the 6-yard box at the near post. A more aggressive and braver keeper would have come out to take the cross high, but Robert Wolnikowski had just come on the minute before, and had not even much time to pull the gloves on before he was picking the ball out of the back of his net off my head. Not at all sensational goal by any stretch, but terribly effective, and I had hopefully my first of many.

In the 81st, Noble's well weighted pass sent Cisse behind with plenty of time to decide how best to finish, opting to simply blast the ball from 10 yards out past the helpless keeper. Cisse could have been forgiven for the exuberance of his celebration, choosing to strike an iron man pose on the penalty spot, but the crowd had already seen enough, and the celebration chosen brought down a reign of boos from the masses as many left their seats to trudge miserably home. The few left would witness 7th and final tally in the 86th minute as Mark Noble stole Essen's corner attempt, charged down his flank, and produced a 40 yard bender which found Garcia in stride and the keeper so hopeless beat that Garcia could have pushed the ball across the line with his arse. On any other day, Nobles complete dominance of the left side of the pitch would have taken man of the match honors - but none could forget Baros' first half hat trick even though he never appeared during the second half.

Terry Murphy (Rating:8) 1 GOAL, 0 ASSITS - 29 mins, 6/6 passes (1 Key), 0/0 tackles won, 2/2 headers won (2 Key), 1 interception, 0 offides, 1 fouls, 0 fouled, 2/2 shots on target.

retired_aurie1201

July 24 --
For those on the youth team, today was the end of training camp in Germany. There was one more Youth Freindly scheduled before the last Combined Friendly which would largely determine who got to play against the Spanish Giants Villareal on the 29th. Our freindly would go down on the 26th, so that would give us a few days together as a team to work on our tactics.

I was a little surprised at the small crowd that greeted us at the airport to welcome us home - with sign and everthing! One of my best mates from school days come up to me and slapped me on the back, proclaiming me a movie star and asked if he could have my autograph. I was wondering what he was on about, when he said "Wot? Didn't ya know? You and the lars were on the Tele! Big screen and all. Just big enuff to fit your head on to see you pot that goal! Brilliant. I can't believe you were on the tele with Carra and all. You lucky bugger!"

Turns out the the game WAS televised. And I was tickled to have scored, in apparently such an important game. Well not that important I guess. But the Academy team got alot of attention from the game, and those of us that had made it in the match would soon find that we had our own little fan clubs started! Surely there would be a little more attention paid on the Merseyside to the Youth team, even by the general public.

There had been more talk of more blood coming into the Academy since we had been gone. Especially of another striker and of course a keeper to take Lancaster spot when and if he left. I realized that over the next few days (years actually), many people would come up to me asking questions about this rumor and that rumor, expecting that I would have the inside knowledge of who we would be bringing into the team. Let me tell you straight out - Most of the time, I didn't have a clue either. We find out by watching the news and reading the rags just like everybody else. Carragher had an instant classic during the Steven Gerrard crisis at the beginning of the month. When Stevie had suddenly and with great drama declared that he was going to extend with the European Champions -- Jamie was sitting in the Melwood Cafateria watching the tele when the announcement was made, He spat out his cornflakes!

retired_hekelemalia

I like the way you are merging reality with fantasy. It will be tough to keep this up but it defo adds to the story for now. Great work. Where on earth do you find the time for this? I did a few Liverpool/England stories a couple of years back and I just could not keep it going - the last story nearly killed me!!

retired_aurie1201

Thanks for the kind words Owen Goal. I am actually very conflicted about this story. I definitely want to reflect the current going on at the club, and will try to add things that true and passing Liverpool fans will nod knowingly about. But I’d also like to keep this game going for a long time, and at some point, the “new youth blood” is going to make and impact at the First Team level (maybe this year, maybe next – we’ll see how they develop) and that is going to affect the reality of the story. I’ve got a vague plan, but we’ll see how it plays out. As for where I find the time, well, I have pretty odd work schedule right now, which give me some free time – and my wife likes to do an online blog, which allows me the time to be creative along side her.

25th July –
Though still very fitness oriented, our training was starting to become a little more tactical, and we could see how our roles in the team would be playing in with one another. One thing was becoming very apparent. Mr. Owen and the assistant coaches were obviously frustrated at the lack of options that they had up front at striker. Alejandro so far hadn’t even had a sniff at the Combined friendlies, as he just wasn’t finding the back of the net in our training matches and the previous friendlies. He was suffering a little on confidence, but it was still very early, and real league competition hadn’t even started yet. Still, there was a lot of rumor about of who else would be coming to the club, or even up from the younger guys, to give Alejandro and Frayne more competition for their positions.

After the end of a long day, Coach put out his idea for what we were going to be going out with tomorrow. Adam Hammil had shown himself well at the end of our last youth friendly, as it was his play that really broke Legear loose for the goal, so Hammil was happy to see that he would be given a run out. Ronnie Bridges would also feature in the next run out, pushing Mark Noble to the bench for the mid field rotation. Coach toyed around a little bit with putting me up front as a Target Man to head down to Alejandro, but in the end he opted again for the two natural strikers in Frayne and Alejandro Fernandez, and would leave me in to roam the midfeild. At the back, David Barnes a hold over from last years youth squad, was showing well at LB, so he took his place in the starting line up. But the ultimate prize was still to be had in who would perform the best to be selected for the Villareal match.


EENY, MEENY, MINEY, MO . . .
Date: July 26th 2005
Venue: Wrexham Racecourse Grounds
Opponent: Oxford United (Full Team)
Weather: Dry, 75 F
Attendance: 891


Except on very rare occasions, the youths team of the Academy would play their home games at nearby Wrexham Racecourse Grounds, were, of course, the local English League Two Team of Wrexham played their home games. All of the local smaller Pro teams had a pretty friendly and professional relationship with Liverpool FC. Several times Liverpool had stepped in with “favors” for the local teams – always looking to push good young players in their direction if their future wasn’t with the team – or playing friendlies with them to bring in a goodly sum of money to keep their coffers filled and the league administrators off their back. And, of course, the Liverpool Academy had for a long time, and would for as long as the Wrexham was around, feature at their grounds.
I was very pleased to see that there were quite a few people in the stands come to see the future blood of Anfield play, and was told that we could expect about 900 or so fans at each game. This was an extremely respectable crowd for a youth team, and usually very featured knowledgeable fans. Many were regulars of Anfield also, so there would occasionally be the same sort of song and traditional displays you could expect to see in the KOP, but that was rare. Still it was very encouraging to see that we were well supported.

Oxford was a very respectable club, and had just won promotion to the English First League as Champions of the Second League in 2004/05; so this would be a very tough match for us, and should have provided a test for our defensive unit as well as test how our build up play was developing. Their best player was a Gary Cahill, an outstanding youth prospect from Aston Villa at Oxford to get good first team experience. Cahill would be a thorn in our side the entire match as he roamed the center of the pitch with impunity and snuffed out several promising build ups with timely interventions. We also had quite a time trying to track down and contain Tommy Mooney (last seasons leading scorer with 18 goals) and Lee Bradbury, who would like up several times through out the match to produce dangerous situation in our end of the pitch. Their best opportunity came in the 11th minute of play, when Uruguaying wingback, Mateo Corbo would drive down the left wing and spotted Lee Bradbury, who had broken free from Hobbsie, making a run for the near post. Bradbury solid header produced a class reflex save from Lancaster, and as the rebound came back to Mooney, Mangani was able to recover and put him off just enough to force the snap shot high and wide of the goal.

In truth we controlled most of the flow of the game, with around 60% of the possession, keeping at their end for a good portion of the game, but we lacked ruthlessness in the final third of the pitch to really look like taking the game by the scruff and putting Oxford in harms way. I found myself much more closely marked in this match wherever I was on the pitch, and had to drop pretty deep in order to receive the ball in build up. In fact, it wasn’t unusual to find Mangani, playing as the holding midfielder, getting further up on the pitch than I, and winning more space and time to give a pass. On top of that, mid game I was asked to play further back in midfield as Coach Owens tried some different ideas to try and open up the Oxford defense, and at the same time provide cover for the defense just in case they were able to break away on the counter. Still, I had my chances as in 5th, and 28st minute, with markers physically crowding me out, I was able to get my head to a couple of crosses, but just couldn’t keep them down to trouble the keeper. Our best opportunity came again, at the very end of the game, when Legear, Noble (who did come on at the half for an Hammil), and John Paul Kelly (on for an ineffective Frayne for the last ½ hour) produced several dangerous moments in Oxfords box that had their defenders scrambling about to block shots and try to clear the ball. But, as was the case for most of the game, our open chances never really troubled the keeper and did no more than find the outside of the netting leaving the crowd wondering what might have been. Neither side produced a player on exceptional form that day, leaving choice for man of the match up in the air. In the end, because their goalie had faced more shots, and had marshalled his area relatively well, Oxford Keeper Chris Tardif took the honors. I was disappointed not to have somehow stood out, and was left guessing that maybe Mangani, who hadn’t put a foot wrong the whole game, would get the run out with the combined squad at Villareal. As for who else would feature, that would really be a game of eeny meeny miney mo.

Terry Murphy (7) 0 Goals, 0 Assists – 90 mins played: 24/30 passes (1 Key), 2/3 tackles won, 7/7 headers won (2 Key), 3 interceptions, 0 runs, 0 offsides, 1 fouls, 0 fouled, 0/3 shots on target.


27 July –

Very early the next morning we gathered in the lecture hall at the Academy to find out who would be making the trip out in the afternoon. True enough, Thomas Mangani was ecstatic to find a seat booked for him to go out. Surprisingly, only two others would join him on the flight: Paul Lancaster, who had showed well last game, and whom Coach Owens probably would want to showcase in order to attract some attention from the lower leagues; and Simone Bertini. Fecking Bertini!? What the heck did he do that nobody else on the pitch didn’t do just as well? He just kinda sat there when he found out he was going with an impish little grin on his face. Bertini, and not me! CRAP!

Needless to say I was quite gloomy for the rest of the week. It would be quite awhile before I would see another chance like this to live the dream. Months before having even a sniff to feature along side Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso. Fecking Bertini!! CRAP!

retired_aurie1201

28 July --

With the chosen three having left, the rest of us turned our attention to our next task, which would be the U-18 Friendly scheduled against Margate for the 31st of July. This was our last regular friendly, not including the intra squad scrimmage the we would have with the Reserves, before the beginning of the competitive season. We'd have a regular pre season schedule tomorrow, but the Villareal game would also be televised during the evening, so I figured I'd catch it with a couple of my mates and see what I would be missing.

retired_aurie1201

Date: 29th of July 2005
Venue: El Madrigal, Villarreal
Opponent: Villarreal
Weather: Dry, 87 F
Attendance: 4641


(Real Life Note: Here was a good opportunity to preview at least some of the talent that Everton would be up against in their legs of the Champions League this year. In this game, Everton didn’t even get close to making the Champions League Last year (yeah, I know, big surprise there), although they did make the qualifying round of the UEFA cup with a 7th place finish.)
Myself and two of my best mates decided to make a night of it. Not old enough to enjoy one at the pub (yet!), so we were relegated to watching the match on the new wide screen theatre system down in the basement. Normally the basement is dominated by the world class foosball table (as I am also a world class foosball player), but that was heaved to the side to get the best view of event. Villarreal was a pretty good team the last few years. They don’t boast huge names, but players like Diego Forlan, Luciano Figueroa, and Santi were outstanding role players. Diego Forlan was particularly surprising last year, after being termed a huge flop for Manchester United in 2003, when he was high on the league scoring list with 14 goals in the 2004/2005 season. Their defense was well captained by Gonzalo Rodriguez and they were characteristically stingy during the first half, holding Liverpool scoreless at the outset. They had become a bit weaker in the goal mouth, as all should remember that is was only last year that Jose (Pepe) Reina kept the goalmouth for them, and was vital in securing 4th spot for them and inclusion in the Champions League Cup.

I must say, I was still a bit put off by Bertini’s inclusion into the team, and was secretly hoping that he would show poorly. I was happy to see that he did not figure at all during the first half of the game – as only Mangani got a starting spot from the Youth Squad. Right away, Mangani got stuck in on some outstanding tackles, and helped Liverpool to a first half in which they dominated the flow of play, but never capitalized on the time and space that they were creating for themselves. Djibril Cisse was handed 3 or 4 decent opportunities and he would be very disappointed that he didn’t put at least on in the back of the net before the end of the half. Especially consider what then occurred after he was subbed out at the half by Milan Baros. Liverpool best chance of the first came in the 39th minute, when Mangani spearheaded an attack, having a shot pushed away by the Villarreal Keeper Lopez Vallejo. The clearance didn’t go far enough, and Liverpool Captain, Steven Gerrard forcefully charged down the rebound. Vallejo had plenty of time to regain his feet and position, and was well placed to shut down any real opportunity that Gerrard had, punching his strong but poorly aimed effort out for a corner.

I let slip a laugh after half time Bertini still hadn’t put in an appearance. If Villarreal kept the game close it looked a bit doubtful that Bertini would find is place in the side, and would definitely keep Paul Lancaster out of the lineup. But Baros would have plenty to say about that, and in short order. Threatening to repeat his hat trick heroics of last game, Baros was clearly the class of the pitch again, and his determined runs into the Villarreal box saw him run onto the end to two almost identical through balls from Xabi Alonso and coolly pass the ball into the back of the net. Two strikers goals in the 51st and 55th minutes put an end to any secret desire to keep Bertini off the pitch. Soon after the restart, Bert was up and warming up on the sideline, along with Paul Lancaster. Well, at least Paul was going to get a run out. There was still much to be done when Bertini came on in the 65th minute, as Villarreal seemed to tighten up at the back, marking Baros out of the game. But by the last 1/3 of an hour, Rafa felt the game was well in hand, and brought Paul Lancaster out. He even had a bit to do as a couple of long distance shots forced Paul to hold the ball, as a bobble would have surely allowed Forlan, poaching on the door step, to put one in. The game was finally put away in the 86th minute as Fernando Morientes took a Zenden pass right up the gut of the defense and curled a well struck ball into the far corner of the net – and that was that. A real Friendly you could say, as neither team played with real forcefulness save for 10 minutes of brilliance by Baros, who indeed took his second man of the match award in Pre-season.


The result was another good one for Baros, as he sought somehow to regain favor and retain his spot in the Liverpool first team. With the introduction of Peter Crouch, and Djibril Cisse back to full health after a terrifying broken leg at Blackburn from last year, it was apparent that Baros was slipping in favor, and could very well have dropped to 4 in the depth chart behind perhaps Crouch or Morientes. His name had been put out on the transfer market, and some teams were beginning to show interest in the former Euro 2004 golden boot winner. But after such a prolific display in the pre-season, I’m sure Rafa would not be too disappointed if nobody won the race to match Liverpools valuation of the lad, and they ended up keeping him. I for one didn’t know Milan at all, but didn’t particularly take to his style on the pitch, and off the pitch – Milan in an attempt to show penache and flair, usually dressed like a prissy, and had even been sighted at a couple of nightclubs carrying a “man purse”. And his hair? Glad to see that Luis Garcia had gotten a decent cut, leaving Baros as the only bloke on the pitch needing an “Alice” band to keep the hair out of his eyes. But, as my dad always says “different strokes for different folks.”

retired_aurie1201

Date: 31 July 2005
Venue: Wrexham Racecourse Ground
Opponent: Margate
Weather: Dry, 75F
Attendance: 914

With Mangani, Bertini, and Lancaster not due to return till later in the evening, we had a run out with a couple of ‘old’ faces in the team (Holmes, Barrett, Barnes) against a relatively decent Margate team from the Southern Conference. Usually talent migrates up the leagues towards the Premiership, but Margates best player was 20 year old Alex Lawless, whom they had purchased from Fulham just this summer. Mr. Owens had encountered him in the past during the youth cups, so we knew a little about him – mostly that he was a good finisher. The rest of the team consisted of older professionals, and young developing talent.

With Mangani gone, Coach had been playing Barragan at DMC during practices, but with the opportunity to play Noble, Legear, Myself, and Bridges in the same midfield (not having to rotate one to the bench) he decide to push me to DMC and have Noble distribute from CM. Coach still wanted a strong presence in box from crosses coming in, so I was to cheat up field whenever possible, but guard against leaving our back door too wide open and getting caught on the break. I figured I was in for some punishment trying to cover the ground on both the offense and the defense – that was until we took possession upon the opening kickoff and rarely surrendered the ball. We kept the ball in their end of the field most of the game, and they never did have the chance to break away. Hobbs and Barragan won practically everything at midfield, and Barragan cut a dominating figure the few times they were able to work the ball up field.

In our past few games, Alejandro Fernandez had featured pretty weakly in the attack, and so the club was looking to bring in more talent, if only to push him for a place in the team alongside Frayne. Coach had brought Barret back down from the Reserve team to initiate that process, and apparently that had done the trick this time around. Fernandez seemed to be everywhere in the box, but more than that, he worked well in build up play, and showed some reliable, though unspectacular, passing throughout the game. His persistent danger was rewarded near the half hour mark after finding himself unmarked in the box, he received a simple pass from Barret who had been pushed wide right. With plenty of time, Fernandez turned and fired in low and left from 12 yards out. Not two minutes later he he repeated the feat, this time receiving from the left side, deep from Legear and squeezing a shot underneath the Margate keeper, Pete Trego. In reality, Trego should have saved, and we learned later at the half, that the official scorekeeper felt that Trego had redirected a shot that was going wide into his own net and had scored it as an own goal. Whatever! It was just nice to see Fernandez get on the sheet. Legear finished off a very comfortable half, after intercepting a silly cross goal pass from Margate CB Adrian Clark and easily putting the ball into the open half of the goal.

There were no goals in the second half, but not for lack of chances. Legear service and flair was exemplary and he was clearly the best player on the pitch taking home MOM honors for the second preseason game.
I however, wasn’t having such a good time. With four clear cut chances off of both headers and plays to feet, I just couldn’t get out of my own way enough to help the cause. Our tactics were working well, but I was frustrated and it was starting to affect my play. That frustration spilled over when I lost my cool after an admittedly harmless foul from Margate midfielder Paul Moore. Like two bulldogs, neither Moore nor myself wanted to back down, so our coaches saw fit to remove us from the game post haste to avoid any real embarrassment in what was, after all, a friendly match. The rest of the game passed without any more fireworks, and more in line with the friendly tenor of the game. I apologized to Moore after the game and we both admitted we had just been frustrated after substandard games and were too embarrassed to back down.

retired_aurie1201

forgot the stats

Stats: Terry Murphy (6) 0 GOALS, 0 ASSISTS. 61 mins, 9/11 passes completed (0 key), 0/0 tackles won, 4/4 headers won (1 key), 0 intercepts, 1 run, 0 offsides, 0 fouls, 1 fouled, 1 / 4 shots on target.

retired_aurie1201

1 August (Sunday)--

Now there were no more Combined Friendlies to cause a distraction to the team. What you saw was what you got . . . well . . .almost.

The three guys out playing hooky with the big boys were back at the Academy today and we gave them a good welcoming back (even Mange as he was very quietly being called by some of us), but there was something else big afoot. A couple of new blokes were about the place, looking a bit wide eyed as we did on that first day. One was a rather tall blond lad - could have been German or another American if I hadn't heard him speak. . . nope -- definately English. The other was rather smallish, but even moreso compared to blondie. He too seemed was English. I had seen him somewhere before? Didn't quite remember where though. At any rate, today was an off date, so I wasn't sticking around the joint to coke and joke with the newbies. Myself, Ronnie Bridges and Mark Noble were off the the Barfly to take back a little bit of music and fun (and perhaps knock back a few if we could get ahold of something)