I love Liverpool Football Club. I can talk non-stop about it if you ask me. been a true kopite for 6 years now. tentatively, I started off watching local football. blame those days when my parents brought me travelling all over malaysia to catch the malaysia cup matches. but that was during the glorious days of fandi ahmad. gradually after fandi became a coach, together with the likes of malik awab etc, singapore football wasn't as exciting anymore. even my parents weren't as enthusiastic about football as before.

when I went to my cousin's house in the past (he's now a chelsea fan. bleargh), the tv channel would usually be ESPN and then I would see players in red and white running around the pitch. I remember begging my father to apply for SCV but eventually I was the one who called the now Starhub and applied for the channels I wanted on my own. my father only had to pay for the bills. hahaha. after shifting to my new house, I wanted so much for my room to be filled with liverpool stuffs. I wanted to compete with my cousin who had lots of liverpool merchandise in his room but my mother became the sole barrier to my wish. she didn't want my room to be one like a boy's and she expected me to paint my room with pictures of flowers. ewwwww. anyhow I wrote about this before and you guys can read it here.

I was an avid fan of the premier league and the team I usually watched was liverpool. I was attracted to the club with great supporters and what more, great players. my favourite player at that time was robbie fowler aka God. why so? his finishing touches is magic! unlike michael owen, fowler is more about skills than speed. when a player grows old, he can't really rely on his speed. I'm not talking about zidane or figo here. the men have both. they're world-class.

after robbie was transferred to manchester city, milan baros became my next favourite. dubbed as the ostravan maradona at his former club, milan has been impressive since his arrival and became the kop favourite soon enough. he became more renown after being the top scorer in Euro 04 competition. with djibril cisse as his strike partner most of the time, milan scored a lot. at that period of time, if you ask any football enthusiast regarding liverpool, they would not fail to mention milan baros's name. other managers were looking forward to getting him but the bottom line is, milan was already in liverpool. haha.

throughout these years, I've been reading and doing a lot of research on the team. I learned how faithful liverpool fans are. I learned how glorious liverpool were light-years away with players such as kenny dalglish, ian rush, kevin keegan and sammy lee to name a few. I also learned that liverpool were league champs for the most times followed by man utd, arsenal, everton and aston villa. the first time that I got to experience a moment of proud and joy as a liverpool fan was when the team won the treble. of course, robbie fowler was the captain at that time and he was even the hero for the win against alaves in the uefa cup! know what, I was so angry with the then manager for selling fowler off just because fowler didn't apologise to him for some disputes. dodohead. coincidentally, liverpool's form got worse after that. the period when gerard houllier continually received criticisms was a retribution. heh, I was especially glad when rafa benitez came to take over.

rafa's great. unlike chelski's jose mourinho, he's not one whose ego is high to the top although he knows he is one of the best managers in europe. I reckon he doesn't like to blame his players when they lose a game or scold them as if getting the league title already is not enough. bleargh. however, the physics phenomenon that opposites attract is a perceptual effect on both managers. both are good friends. in any case, managers seldom, or probably don't pick up a fight when the team they lead either wins or loses in a most anticipated football competition.

it has always been the supporters and maybe a number of players from each team that express their feelings of anger and bitterness. this is a scene that most sane football fans would want to avoid. remember what happened during the match between inter milan and ac milan in the champions league quarter finals? what was the aftermath? both teams come from the same league and come this tuesday whereby english teams, chelsea and liverpool, meet each other, I'm hoping nothing of the sort like what happened at San Siro will happen at Anfield. presumably not too, since chelsea and liverpool are not crosstown rivals and nothing undesirable happened when liverpool lost 3-2 to chelsea in the carling cup 3 months ago.

that brings me to the thought of merseyside rivals everton. if liverpool were to finish out of 4th place in the premiership but they win the champs league title, the FA will have to decide which team will be advancing to the champs league competition next season. I'm keeping my fingers crossed again that the FA will answer to liverpool's appeal. even benitez thinks that "if you win a trophy, you must be allowed to defend it". much talks about this has been going on but that doesn't mean that 99.9 percent of the liverpools fans think that they are already in the finals.

not that I don't want them to be in the finals anyway. haha. I'd be among the most contented liverpool fan if chelsea are to beaten out of the finals. people will say it won't be easy job for a 5th placed team to beat a 1st placed team. but this is the champions league and I will be living in hope till tuesday arrives or even May 25th.

will I be able to experience another of the most prestigious feeling of being a Kop?