We'll support you evermore

There's a lot of talk around at the moment about who you should "support" in Europe when English clubs reach finals. I don't care. I'll be pleased if Liverpool win, just as I was pleased at their incredible fightback in 2005. I was impressed when Manchester United won in 1999 with the dramatic late goals, but I didn't leap off the sofa.

But equally, as those games unfolded I wasn't crestfallen that the game was being won by a foreign team. I won't be gutted if Liverpool lose in anything like the way it took me a week to get over Rovers losing to Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final, or lost the ability to speak for three hours when Liverpool equalised in the last minute in a cup tie in 1990.

I feel the same about England now as well. I want them to win, I just don't care that much if they don't. This thought came to me in Nuremberg during the World Cup as I watched England's underperforming galacticos stumble around against Trinidad and Tobago. I couldn't find it in me to utter "c'mon Becksy", "nice one Ashley Cole", or to sing some ditty about Peter Crouch. I'm glad I went to the World Cup, but would probably have enjoyed a spectacle like Australia v Brazil more than the general feeling of being slightly embarrassed in the company of the "no surrender" and "10 German bombers" brigade.

I'll say this as well, I'm slightly relieved that Manchester United won't be playing Liverpool in Athens in the final. It would have been horrible.



Here's a sympathetic picture to capture the sombre mood of the day.