1-0 win and saw us within 1 win to qualify. Now is really simple. 1 win in the next 2 game will do. Of course we want to have the job done in France. :)
We started the match brightly and Baros almost scored in the first minute. Biscan was everywhere and rightly deserved a man of the match performance. He "created" the goal by dribbling the ball and passed 2-3 opponents. He then passed the ball to Riise, whose great cross forced the Deportivo defender to put the ball in his own net.
The defense was really great and Kirkland has almost nothing to do besides colided with Biscan (he's everywhere). We have a few chances but can't finish off, but at the end we deserved to win.
As Rafa said the game plan was executed perfectly. He tried to maintain a high tempo and Deportivo was never really into the game. If we have this performance day in, day out, who knows how high we will finish?
Player Rating:
Kirkland: 7 Almost nothing to do.
Josemi: 7 A much better performance. Maybe because he's back to his homeland?
Carragher: 7 Solid as ever.
Hyypia: 7 He wins every header, though his passing need to improve.
Traore: 7 Another solid performance.
Kewell: 7 He tried very hard and in fact his performance is not bad. But maybe due to tactical reason he was substituted.
Hamann: 7 A typical good Hamann performance.
Biscan: 8 The best performance of Igor in a red shirt. More to come!
Riise: 7 His great cross lead to the own goal, and he has several shoting attempts.
Garcia: 7 A good performance, created several chances.
Baros: 7.5 Works very hard. And he was constant threat to Deportivo.
Substitutions:
Finnan: 6 A good substitution performance.
Sinama-Pongolle: Conceded several free kicks. Need to improve
Alonso: He was deemed unfit to play for more than 45 minutes. But due to the excellent performance of Igor, he only need to walk 3 minutes during injury time - enough to break his jinx against Deportivo.
Rafa: 8.5 An excellent tactical win for Rafa. The high tempo methodology finally works for the whole match. The key is too put Igor ahead of Diao.
Deportivo: 6 Unless they win the last 2 home games they can't qualify. I really wish they can qualify as this means the other teams are losing points, which is good to us.
Man of the match: Biscan. First of many great performances coming.
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