Liverpool Quality Should Tell

It wasn’t exactly all gloom and doom at Anfied Road at this time last year. Kenny Dalglish’s New Year return had brought renewed optimism and Liverpool – despite the shock departure of Fernando Torres and the absence of Steven Gerrard – were smack in the middle of a six match unbeaten run. Yet the feel-good atmosphere surrounding the return of King Kenny can only pale in comparison to the enthusiasm that will follow Liverpool into the Carling Cup final at Wembley on Sunday.

Sure, it’s not the holy grail of the Champions League, the final of which the Reds contested in both 2005 and 2007, but it presents an opportunity to bring some silverware into the Anfield trophy room for the first time in six years. That it’s Championship side Cardiff City standing in the way of Liverpool and the cup only means that Dalglish’s side will start as clear favourites as they take to the turf at the new Wembley stadium for the very first time.

That will only add extra pressure to a club that is expected to challenge for honours – especially after bringing in close to 100 million pounds worth of new talent over the last 13 months. But after seeing off Stoke, Chelsea and Manchester City – all beaten on their home turfs – to get this far, Liverpool should have enough confidence and quality to win this one.

With so many new faces still finding their feet, Dalglish’s team is hardly the finished article; exciting and frustrating in equal measure, inconsistency has been the hallmark of a season that has seen them combine solid defense, decent, sometimes sublime midfield play with alarming profligacy in front of goal.

But Liverpool may just be entering their best spell of the season. Not only is the inspirational Gerrard just returning to full fitness, embattled striker Luis Suarez is also freshly returned from his 8-match ban, and the much-maligned duo of Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing seem to be finding form just in time for the trip to Wembley – that is if their showing in last week’s FA cup trouncing of Brighton is anything to go by. Add to the mix the impressive form of the evergreen Craig Bellamy – 4 goals in his last 7 games – and you’d expect a more potent strike force.

The defence pretty much picks itself these days – Reina, Johnson, Enrique, Skrtel and Agger have been superb - so the key decisions facing Dalglish would concern how to set up in midfield. Will the defensive harrying of Jay Spearing be preferred to the creative passing of Charlie Adam? Will the experience of the tireless Dirk Kuyt get in ahead of the youthful energy and pragmatism of Jordan Henderson?

The bigger question, in the mind of Liverpool fans, would be which Liverpool team will turn up; the lacklustre, disinterested bunch that lost at Bolton a few weeks ago; the creative, but wasteful team that have lost so many points to draws at home; or the much more efficient bunch that scored three at Wolves and saw off Brighton last week?

The one thing they will need to avoid is thinking all they have to do is show up.

Cardiff will no doubt be looking to play the underdog role to perfection and pull out a win here. For that happen, they’ll need winger Peter Whittingham to reproduce his Championship form. He has been Cardiff’s biggest threat in their promotion quest with 9 goals and 11 assists to his name, but he’ll have to be at his very best against one of the Premiership’s best defences. The much-travelled Scottish striker Kenny Miller also carries a goal threat – he also has 9 Championship goals to his name – and the experienced Rob Earnshaw could prove an effective tool from the bench.

In all, it would be a shock of epic proportions were Cardiff to overturn the Reds, but Liverpool – I expect they’ll dominate possession - will need to stay focused and make the most of their chances. A much expected win here could be just the boost this team needs to finish the season on a high.

After so many years without a trophy, I doubt they’ll need any more motivation.

For The Lost Ones...

It was one of those endings one has come to expect of Hollywood movies. Indeed, no one could have scripted an ending this perfect. Yet, as Stoppira Sunzu scored to put an end to a marathon penalty shoot-out in Libreville last Sunday, this real life redemption story had reality imitating art in a most refreshing manner.

Sunzu’s kick won Zambia its very first Africa Nations Cup crown, the very highest point in the history of Chipolopolo, achieved at the very site of the country’s most traumatic tragedy. For it was on this very same shores – a mere 500 yards off mainland Libreville – that a chartered airplane carrying Zambia’s national team to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal had plunged into the Ocean on April 17 1993, killing off an entire generation of the finest footballers Zambia had ever produced.

That it’s taken nigh on 20 years - a whole generation – for Zambia to reach this crowning moment perhaps undermines the enormity of what this team have achieved here. And indeed, the magnitude of what that loss represented to Zambian - and African – football at the time. Much more will be written about today’s heroes – the impressive goalkeeping of Kennedy Mweene; the resilient man-marking of Sunzu; the midfield industry of Rainford Kalaba; and the attacking guile of Chris Katongo and Felix Mayuka. But those whose loss, all those years ago, has played a part in inspiring these ones can never be forgotten, and it was particularly pleasing to see Kalusha Bwalya (the one player who missed that fateful flight as he was supposed to join up with his teammates directly from his base in Belgium) celebrating with Katongo and co. in Libreville.

More recent observers of African football can be forgiven for thinking of Zambia as this middle-order soccer country enjoying its 15 minutes of fame. But those who remember Chipolopolo before that fateful day in 1993 will recall a blossoming African soccer power. Indeed, the fact that a reconstituted national team – basically a B team, since none of them (save Bwalya) was deemed good enough to be on that fateful flight – was only narrowly beaten by a superb Nigeria team in the Nations Cup final just a year later, speaks volumes about the quality of that team.

But the full story of that Zambian team can only begin in the summer of 1988 at the Olympic Games in South Korea. There, a team brilliantly back-stopped by the legendary Efford Chabala, and inspired by the midfield talents of Charles Musonda and Kalusha Bwalya, started off with a 5-0 rout of Guatemala, before posting what remains perhaps the biggest result in Zambian football history – a 4-0 bashing off mighty Italy. Kalusha claimed a hat-trick on that day, underlining his role as the team’s talisman, and cementing his place in Zambian football lore.

Five years later, that team had matured together and had a really good chance of making another splash on the international scene. They had started their World Cup final qualifying round with an impressive 2-1 win against Morocco in Lusaka. But it all went awry with that fateful trip that ended so tragically in Libreville.

Goalkeepers Efford Chabala and Richard Mwanza; defenders John Soko, Whiteson Changwe, Robert Watiyakeni, Samuel Chomba, Kenan Simambe, and Winter Mumba; midfielders Eston Mulenga, Derby Makinka, Moses Chikwalakwala, Wisdom Chansa, Numba Mwila, Godfrey Kangwa; strikers Kelvin Mutale, Timothy Mwitwa, Moses Masuwa, Patrick Banda.

All gone – but not forgotten. This one’s for them too.