Wednesday Wrap-Up

It was the best of times... it was the worst of times. Or it was just a Wednesday with some interesting sports happenings. First, Liverpool at Barcelona. This Champions League clash was a pretty big deal to me and the rest of the world who care about soccer. Frankly, I don't think a lot of people were giving the Reds much chance in the knockout stage of the competition after this tough draw. Plus there was this ridiculous story about Craig Bellamy going all Office Space copier on John Arne Riise with a golf club during a recent training session. Of course, the whole thing turned out to be not true and both started yesterday in what turned out to be a HUGE 2-1 victory for Liverpool. All in all, it was a game played with moments of brilliance and moments of stupidity by both teams, there were some bad calls both ways. And, it just so happened that the two goal scorers were Bellamy (who celebrated with a big golf swing) and Riise.

For anyone not familiar with Champions League format, in the knockout stage each team in the matchup plays a home game and the team with the most total goals moves on. The really interesting thing is that the first tiebreaker is goals scored on the road. So, if Barcelona comes to Liverpool in a couple of weeks and wins 1-0, it would still not be enough due to the 2 to 1 advantage in away goals. After what has been a moderately successful season (at best) with the Reds never really competitive for the Premiership title, this is a bigtime victory and I'm officially excited again.

Elsewhere, in yet another game that wasn't on TV in my area, Purdue got their asses handed to them at Iowa. You just can't afford to lose by 19 at this point in the season if you want to make the tournament. With three games remaining, I'm thinking they have to win them all or really impress everybody in the Big Ten tournament. At least those aren't technically road games, because this team continues to roll over like a dog getting its belly scratched away from Mackey. Ugh. Not much more to say about this game, but I don't think today that Purdue is a tournament-worthy team. Maybe in a week I'll feel differently. I hope.