2004 CHAMPIONS LEAGUE - MONACO vs. CHELSEA
A Running Diary by Bill Barnwell (April 20, 2004)
All times EST and pm

2:35 - For those of you who say Veteran Presence doesn't exist in soccer, I say - whither Tony Meola? Bruce Arena making him the third goalie for the US 2002 World Cup Team over Tim Howard clearly shuts you up. Not to mention making Jeff Agoos the lynchpin of our defense. God I hate Jeff Agoos.

2:38 - OK - maybe I'm not as smart as Claudio Ranieri - but amongst "Things I Wouldn't Say About My Trigger-Happy New Boss", "Roman knows nothing about football" is pretty high on the list. Then again - the article is from a Spanish daily newspaper, which is about as reliable as the New York Post.

2:39 - The Stade Louis reminds me quite a bit of Highbury, except that it's lacking the giant video screens in each corner. I think Chelsea's OK with that at this point.

2:41 - Ah, ESPN is using the David Carr has no OL commercial again to shill the NFL Draft. Maybe they'll show the same five Ray Lewis commercials every break again to shill Madden 2005.

2:42 - One of the Monaco players has a fantastic mullet. I'm not even sure who it is - Ludovic Giuly, maybe?

2:43 - OK - the only players I know in the Monaco 11 are Fernando Morientes (who's not even Monaco property), Giuly, and Jerome Rothen. Shaboni Nonda is on the bench so that's four. Giuly taking the coin toss against Desailly was beautiful, too - it was like David Eckstein next to Barry Bonds.

2:44 - Rippa weeps as Damien Duff is not participating this evening. Let's just say I've heard of all of the Chelsea team.

2:45 - I love when people talk about how different the Spanish game is from the English game. I mean, I know I'm an uncultured inexperienced American, but it's all soccer, right?

2:46 - Jerome Rothen's hair is preposterously held together. Grace Kelly swoons.

2:49 - Hernan Crespo has more than a passing resemblance to Steve Perry. Would the Argentinian Steve Perry be better or worse? I mean - I know it wouldn't be good either way; but you gotta shoot for something. Beth Littleford saying that Steve Perry "...wasn't a...conventionally attractive man" was the most wonderful way to ever hide one's sheer lust for Steve Perry. I use it all the time now.

2:51 - The mullet's not Giuly's. I will find out whose it is before the end of the match.

2:54 - I'm not looking at the Soccernet commentary but if I was I'm sure it'd say "There's nothing between the two sides so far".

2:55 - Whoever's announcing the game for ESPN (it's not Dellacamera) says that "Desire is half the battle at this level." What's the other half? Is it Jordan? Is it a roasting situation?

2:55 - On a side note, any time you have to issue a press release denying rumors, it means those rumors are completely true. Kieron Dyer, I'm looking at you. Mike Piazza, I'm looking at you too. Embrace it, Mike. On the other hand, can anyone really blame David Beckham for cheating on Posh Spice? It's not exactly Kurt Warner cheating on his wife, but you just know that their marriage is basically the Nick Lachey-Jessica Simpson marriage times two.

2:58 - Now Seamus Malin is complaining about Crespo not being committed to this game or showing the infamous "blood and guts" (which, as you may or may not be aware, is British for scrappiness). Hopefully Crespo blames it on Diego Maradona being ill.

3:00 - Mario Melchiot is booked for a late tackle on Rothen - Rothen didn't know what part of his body to exaggerate being injured so he grabbed his head and his legs.

3:01 - And Monaco scores off of the free kick as Dado Prso (whose name I do know from CM now that I think about) gets a ball put right on his head off of a bounce and does the business from seven yards out. This falls directly into the category of "Goals I could score easily but would probably put high", or "Goals Cory Gibbs could never ever score". Monaco 1:0 Chelsea.

3:03 - Malin is still burying Crespo, even though he was the only Chelsea player who tried to make a play on the free kick. He's actually even hating on Crespo for making the attempt and missing. Someone's a Steve Augeri fan.

3:06 - Steve Augeri is the singer who replaced Steve Perry in Journey. When I Googled to find that out-

3:06 - Hernan Crespo just equalized for Chelsea by tapping in and the crowd was three times as loud for the Chelsea goal as they were for the Monaco goal - as Seamus Malin noted. He even says "Crespo hasn't been playing well" as he's recapping the goal. Give a brother a break, Seamus! 22 minutes in and it's 1:1, with Chelsea now leading on away goals.

3:08 - Back to my story. When I searched to find out who it was, I found a website that for some reason has a poem for Keith Olbermann on his last night on SportsCenter. I bring you "The Yellow Rose" (http://briesplace.freeservers.com/poetry.htm):

Little velvet sunshine on his keith green lapel.

A shining light after death, illuminating the darkest of mourning hearts-- distraught from a cancer death.

Preparation cannot prevent that inevitable sting.

Relieved-- by a little velvet sunshine, a yellow rose, on his keith green lapel.

3:09 - Crespo is now "tempermental" and "annoying".

3:09 - Frank Lampard should be the World Player of the Year. Every time I see him he's either scoring or making people weep by coming so close from 25 yards - not to mention that he's the only guy who's actually managed to keep his starting gig at Chelsea for every match. There's no reason he shouldn't be starting for England in the center of midfield this summer.

3:11 - Right as I write that, Lampard makes a great tackle on the right side of the field, takes two strides with the ball, and makes a perfect cross that Crespo barely shoots high. Soccernet commentary would note that "...Chelsea's class is showing through."

3:14 - I think one of the few places that an NBA European expansion would work is into Monaco. You just know Charles Barkley would leave TNT to own the team and convince Shaq to come join him. Maybe he'll even offer the token of friendship to Christian Laettner.

3:17 - Do you think Christian Laettner uses that to justify his existence to people? "I WAS ON THE DREAM TEAM DAMNIT! No - not the one that lost - THE REAL ONE!"

3:18 - One of the fun things about ESPN's Champions League coverage is that they'll advertise the things they're showing overseas. God, would I not want to get up at 10 AM in New Zealand to watch Knicks-Nets. Especially considering Stephen A. Smith and Tim Hardaway are probably doing commentary.

3:19 - For all the talk Seamus Malin has done about Crespo stinking it up, Eidur Gudjonsson has done his best Emile Heskey impression this entire match. I still can't figure out why he starts over Mutu or Hasselbaink. If anyone's going to have Veteran Presence - it's Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink - which is really one of the underrated names on the planet.

3:24 - It sounds like the Monaco fans are chanting the Na Na Na Na song - which is really weird because you would think they'd have something more to say than that. Couldn't they have rented some Millwall fans for this match?

3:25 - Oh yeah - you better believe I'm excited about Millwall in the UEFA Cup next year.

3:28 - The Monaco keeper handles a free kick by punching his defender in the back of the head.

3:29 - Crespo's game has COME AFIRE!!! Tommy Smyth has come all the way around now.

3:29 - Marco Ambrosio tries to deal with a free kick on the other end by slapping at it with one hand. That, as you might expect, doesn't work. Monaco gets a corner off of it and the defender who just got beaned nearly puts it away. We're in stoppage time now.

3:30 - Halftime. I need a drink. A strong one.

3:32 - How come no one's been able to make a good hockey commercial for seven years? The black and white ones used to be just fine. How hard can it be? Just show a clip of the US National Team destroying a hotel room or something.

3:40 - Yep - the new NBA Playoff commercial with the Black Eyed Peas isn't good but it's at least better than the ones last year with Christina Aguilera and Frank Sinatra. If the NBA knows anything, it's how to market to its audience.

3:43 - An ITT Tech commercial featuring a guy who looks like Emmitt Smith. So many jokes. Which one will I choose?

3:45 - Oh yeah. I never get old seeing Zach Morris in previews for NYPD Blue.

3:46 - Juan Sebastian Veron is getting substituted in for Jesper Gronkjaer. I remember when he was the best midfielder in the World. So does Manchester United's bankroll. The bloom went off that rose pretty quickly.

3:49 - Whenever anyone refers to Iceland (or brings up Eider Gudjohnsson), I think of that scene in Mighty Ducks II when the Icelandic team's trainer talks about how Iceland is green and Greenland is icy. I'm not sure why. That was really a bizarre move for the Mighty Ducks - from (many would argue) lucky winner of a local peewee league to represening the United States? Come on.

3:50 - And how much do you think you'd have to pay Emilio Estevez to fight Charlie Sheen in a Celebrity Boxing episode? I know you'd just have to give Charlie Sheen a night with Paris Hilton.

3:51 - Monaco nearly scores again with a header off of a freekick - Ambrosio makes a very good reaction save to keep it out. Monaco follows it up by putting the ball a yard away from the goal but in no position for Morientes to put any pace on the shot. Marcel Desailly (remember when he was an automatic first choice?) clears it off of the line. Monaco is looking impressive.

3:53 - Makelele shields a Monaco player from the ball. Zicos responds by slapping Makelele in the back of the head when they get up. He takes three steps and then falls down. Zicos gets red-carded and Makelele gets a yellow. That's a good way of cutting off the momentum.

3:57 - Prso gets substituted for ex-West Ham midfielder Edward Cisse. Let's see if he still sucks.

3:59 - Monaco forgets to mark the entire Chelsea team off of a corner but Gudjohnsson puts it high.

4:00 - Seamus takes a shot at the BBC's Alan Hanson as tempers begin to flare. It's started by Morientes kicking out at Scott Parker. If Morientes gets sent off, Monaco can essentially just start nine Diego Maradonas and have the same chance of winning.

4:01 - Yep - got in my second Maradona joke. Are there more to come? Continue on, gentle reader.

4:08 - Malin: "Ambrosio seems to give off an air of a...lack of confidence." NO PRESENCE!!

4:08 - Not much has happened since the red card. Monaco's stepped their game up a notch but it doesn't look like a second goal for them is in the cards.

4:09 - Robert Huth comes on for Scott Parker. How does Robert Huth get a game? Somewhere Winston Bogarde weeps...in his vault of money.

4:10 - Oh and Hasselbaink came on a few minutes ago. I don't think his name's been spoken since then.

4:10 - And who did Joe Cole piss off? Maybe he should've taken that loan to Spartak Moscow right after he signed - really one of the greatest stories no one remembers. Right up there with Peter Ridsdale saying that David O'Leary was his Leeds United manager for life.

4:13 - Chelsea finally does a good job of clearing off of a free kick after Terry gets a yellow card. Malin says that Terry's "cagey". Is he proven, though?

4:16 - Giuly is playing by himself up front as Monaco has switched to basically a 4-3-1-1 and basically a longball approach. He gets a ball on his feet and makes Chelsea's defense look silly before putting a shot wide. He's very much the fantastic pickup basketball player at the gym who's surrounded by four tired fat guys and is just going up against the entire other team on offense. Or he's Ricky Davis.

4:17 - Hasselbaink misses an absolute sitter (I love that term) right in front off of a header. That's going to hurt.

4:18 - And it does as Morientes gets a pass from Giuly off of a longball and is left wide open to put a rocket in from twenty five yards out. I'm sold on the Giuly-Rothen-Morientes troika as being better than any three Chelsea can put together.

4:20 - Yeah yeah, it's 4:20 on 4/20 - I'm sure everyone at the University (and Ricky Davis) smokes but me. What can I say? I think 311 is terrible.

4:22 - Robert Huth is so the lovechild of Matthew McConaughey and Val Kilmer. If he could combine the hilarity of the loaded Kilmer on the Daily Show (of which Jon Stewart noted that Kilmer was the "best crazy person he'd ever interviewed") and the high McConaughey picture on the Smoking Gun, there'd really be nothing left for the world of comedy.

4:23 - Giuly comes off and Nonda, the best striker in France last year, comes on.

4:24 - Nonda scores with his first touch. I think Claudio Ranieri's oil service just got cut off. Ambrosio was...shall we say...befuddled. The Petr Cech experience is so far away right now.

4:24 - I think as the game's gone on I've become more and more in favor of Monaco winning - originally, I was against them because I remembered that they had Rafael Marquez during the 2002 World Cup. Marquez, as you may remember, headbutted Cobi Jones in the US-Mexico match, earning him a red card and a worldwide six-game suspension. The reason I've changed my mind is falling in love with Ludovic Giuly and Jerome Rothen, as well as remembering that I really hate Cobi Jones. Could the entire 1994 US World Cup team just retire already?

4:28 - Abramovich already used the Game Genie cheat code to get unlimited funds - he needs to find the code for unlimited stoppage time.

4:29 - Hasselbaink misses badly from just outside the area. Why was I on your junk again? Oh yeah - the twelve minute hat trick against Wolves. Right.

4:30 - Rothen goes out and his hair is still in perfect shape. How can we, America, be at odds with France when they have so much to offer us?

4:31 - Stoppage time now. The suits with knives are standing outside Ranieri's apartment right now. I really would go out and buy the Chelsea program notes where Ranieri writes in broken English about how masked men cut off his pinkies.

4:34 - Full time - Monaco 3:1 Chelsea. There's no reason why Chelsea can't come back, but I don't think they will.