Hungry GERRARD Leads Liverpool from the Front

Liverpool's players will stride out into the muggy heat of the Olympic stadium this evening with one final rallying cry from their captain ringing in their ears. "We do not want to leave Athens upset and with regrets that we have not brought the European Cup home," said Steven Gerrard.

"We want to make history, be heroes and come home as winners."

Memories of Istanbul two years ago will abound at kick-off tonight as Gerrard, the inspiration behind Liverpool's comeback at the Ataturk, leads his team out against a Rossoneri line-up primed for revenge. The midfielder usually revels on such stages, having been instrumental in claiming the Champions League and the FA Cup under Rafael Benítez, and any notion that the Merseysiders' motivation is any less in pursuit of a sixth European Cup was dismissed. This team may have enjoyed consistent successes in cup competitions in recent years but the hunger remains.

To win one final was absolutely magnificent but to do it twice would be really special," said Gerrard, who is expected to play in an advanced role off Dirk Kuyt. "But I do not feel fulfilled as a footballer yet. Not at all. I am 27, I have had a decent career so far as medals are concerned but I have still got a lot of ambitions and dreams to fulfil: winning the Premiership, perhaps, and I want to experience another Istanbul. I'm even hungrier now than I was when I started out."I want more medals and trophies. If we win this game I won't be happy. I want more European Cup medals and more FA Cups. I want as many honours for this club as I can before I retire and everything I win just makes me hungrier to keep going."

Gerrard saw Mohamed Sissoko hobble away from training last night, the Mali international struggling to overcome a hamstring injury, but insisted this Liverpool side is far stronger than the team that recovered from 3-0 down at half-time in Istanbul to rally and recover to take the game to penalties. "We're a better team this time around," he said. "We've been to the final before so we know what it's all about. Personally, in 2005, everything was new for me and it took its toll. Everyone was talking about the history this club has in the European Cup and our previous successes and we felt a bit of pressure on us to emulate some of their achievements.

"I know I wasted a lot of energy with nerves before that game and I won't be making the same mistakes again. When you're nervous you get tight, you don't make the right decisions and you don't play to the best of your ability. We were really naive back then and didn't do ourselves justice in that first half in Istanbul. It was only when we were staring down the barrel of the gun at half-time that we started to play anything like ourselves."

Liverpool will hope to capitalise on the Italians' desire for revenge. "Milan will feel they have something to prove after the way they caved in in the second half, and we'll be ready for that. They've looked a good team all the way through the competition and did well to get past Manchester United as well as they did because they've had a great season. But it's going to be different this time around. Hopefully, we'll be ready from the whistle this time and not left facing a mountain to climb like before."

Source: The Guardian

ETO'O Pledges His Future to Barcelona

Samuel Eto'o has rubbished newspaper speculation linking him with a £30m summer move to the Premiership by insisting he will "definitely be at Barcelona next season".

During the last few months Eto'o, the three-time African footballer of the year, has looked increasing unhappy at the Nou Camp. He has a brooding, often distant relationship with Ronaldinho, and he fell out with coach Frank Rijkaard after refusing to come on as a late substitute against Racing Santander.

During the last few months Eto'o, the three-time African footballer of the year, has looked increasing unhappy at the Nou Camp. He has a brooding, often distant relationship with Ronaldinho, and he fell out with coach Frank Rijkaard after refusing to come on as a late substitute against Racing Santander.

But despite regularly dropping hints that he'd like to play in England - in March he openly flirted with the idea of a move to Liverpool in FourFourTwo and the Daily Mirror - Eto'o now insists he wants to stay at Barcelona."I am happy here," he said. "There is no problem, no crisis. The press can write what they want, but I am staying."

When asked about a move to Liverpool, Eto'o was just as forthright. "I have not heard anything," he said. "These kind of things are usually just speculation and don't come through to me. I am happy at Barcelona and will definitely be here next season. I have no idea where I will be in a few years time, but at the moment I have a contract with Barcelona until 2010."

The fact that Ronaldinho is likely to leave for Milan over the summer may have persuaded Eto'o to stay. Or it might be that he's merely biding his time and assessing his options. Either way, he insists that rumours of his surliness are wide of the mark. "There have been so many lies written about me," he claimed. "In fact, I would say that 99.999% of the things I have read about myself in the papers have been untrue."

Source: Guardian

MALDINI the Fulcrum of Milan Generation Game

Paolo Maldini is seeking a fifth European Cup tonight before the years finally catch him up.

Column by Richard Williams

At the back of the room, behind the row of television cameras, there is a small commotion as a door opens. Il capitano, someone says. And as Paolo Maldini walks in, the smiling master of all the surveys and the very embodiment of la bella figura, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he may be the only footballer currently active whose entrance can provoke the instinctive urge to rise to one's feet.

A month away from his 39th birthday, Maldini is the living symbol of a club he joined when he was 10 years old. Now Milan's leader on the pitch is looking forward to his eighth European Cup final, a run which began in 1989, when he was still a teenager. He has been a winner on four occasions and a loser on three. "I don't intend to equalise the score in Athens," he says.

Over the last three weeks he has been undergoing daily treatment for the long-standing knee problem that forced him to withdraw from the semi-final against Manchester United at half-time in the first leg at Old Trafford. But after coming through two full-scale training sessions this week, he is confident that tonight in the Olympic stadium he will be fit to make his 847th senior appearance in the red and black shirt.

Maldini's links with the club stretch back into the past and forward into the future. His father, Cesare, was a Trieste-born defender who appeared in the club's first European Cup final, a 3-2 defeat by Real Madrid in 1958. In 1963 he led them to their first victory in the competition with a 2-1 defeat of Benfica at Wembley.

Paolo's debut came as a 16-year-old substitute away to Udinese in January 1985. The player he replaced at half-time, Sergio Battistini, was deputising in the centre of midfield for the injured Ray Wilkins, but by the start of the following season the teenager had become the first-choice
left-back.

"You could have stuck him in any position," Wilkins said this week. "As soon as I saw him I thought, my God, this boy's got everything. He was 16 years old, 6ft 1in tall, quick and strong, with two good feet. And he was in love with football, which you can still see today. He's also stayed the same thoroughly decent bloke, a gentleman as well as an outstanding player."

Kaka, Milan's current star, has a younger man's perspective on Maldini. "When I arrived in Milan," he told me, "I realised very quickly that he was exactly the player I'd watched on television, so I wanted to learn his secrets. I found that his strong motivation is simply due to his character. You have to be born that way. He's a great man."

As Maldini's press conference began, the captain was asked if, after all this time, his blood runs red and black. "I suppose so," he said, "since my story here begins with my father, and I was born here. I don't know what I would have done without Milan. Maybe I wouldn't even have liked football." Now that the elder of his own two sons, 10-year-old Christian, is playing for the club's junior team, the Maldini dynasty seems destined to continue deep into the new century.

For Paolo himself, however, there will be just one more season, shortly to be confirmed in a new contract. "It only needs a signature," he said. "The main factor was how I felt about my physical condition. At the end of the season I'll be having an operation to sort out the problem with my knee, and then I'll be ready to start my last season."

Milan's success in reaching another final at the end of a difficult season helped persuade him to continue. "Playing in the eighth final of my career, and the third as captain, is a great motivation. It shows the nature of the club. If things don't go so well one year, you have a pretty good idea that you'll be back in contention a year later. For a player, that's a great reassurance."

Their pride was badly dented two years ago when they so dramatically surrendered a 3-0 lead to Liverpool in Istanbul. "That one hurt the most. In general when you deserve to win, you win. On that occasion we gave everything but we had to accept the way it turned out. You could say that meeting Liverpool is an opportunity for revenge, but we don't have anything against them. To reach the final in Athens is like a victory already for us, given the way the season started."

Maldini's continued importance to the team is a reflection of the work done by Milan's army of kinesiologists, chiropractors, nutritionists and physiotherapists in prolonging the active life of their best players. "Milan continue to win," he said, "because the club has a different approach to the game - and to life, too, I'd say. It's the only club that keeps players after the age of 35 - not just out of affection but because of what they can do on the pitch. Maybe in a physical sense I was a better player at 25 than I am now, but at 38 I have a great deal more experience. "Milan is not a club that has a quick turnover of players. We like to stay here because we live well and have the opportunity to reach goals that are not so common at other clubs. The quality of life here is important."

When he finally retires, Maldini will not be following his former team-mates Carlo Ancelotti, Mauro Tassotti, Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta into the club's coaching hierarchy. "I have other things I want to do in my life," he said. There is a Paolo Maldini football school for children in Senegal, a line of clothing run in partnership with his friend Christian Vieri, and a modelling contract with the H&M fashion chain.

Not even the thought of guiding his son's career can interest him in the idea of emulating the later career of his own father, who coached Italy's Under-21s for 10 years before taking the senior Azzurri, including Paolo, to the 1998 World Cup. "Christian isn't 11 yet, so he's only playing the game for fun," he said on the eve of yet another historic night in his record-breaking career. "I won't push him. But if it turns out that he wants to be a professional footballer, I can only hope that he has the same kind of life that I've had."

Source: The Guardian

KAKA would relish chance to play in the Premiership

By: James Ducker

Premiership defenders received the news that none of them will have wanted to hear yesterday: Kaká wants to play in England. But not before the AC Milan playmaker has tried to persuade Cristiano Ronaldo to join the Italian giants.

Manchester United’s Champions League semi-final against Milan had been billed as a battle between the world’s two best players, but while Kaká won that contest hands down as he inspired the Serie A team to a 5-3 aggregate victory, the Brazilian is keen to play in the same team as the United and Portugal winger. “He should transfer to Milan, then we could play together,” Kaká said yesterday. “You never know.”

Seemingly more likely, however, is the prospect of Kaká playing in the Barclays Premiership, although to judge from his performances — and three goals — over the two legs against United, that spells bad news for defenders.

“I love the competition, the challenge. There are many big teams,” he said. “Three English teams made the last four of the Champions League, so the challenge is very appealing. If one day I was to leave Milan, I would definitely look at an English team.”

Kaká is desperate to avenge Milan’s defeat by Liverpool in the Champions League final in Istanbul in 2005, when, leading 3-0 at half-time, they imploded before losing on penalties. Ominously, he believes that there is still more to come from him. “The final against Liverpool will be a unique game,” he said. “I sincerely hope it will be different from that in 2005. I reiterate that I am not playing at my top level. I still have a lot to improve on.”

Source: The Times

TEVEZ may stay a Hammer

Argentina international Carlos Tevez has hinted that he could stay with West Ham United next season and says he has been delighted with the support he has received from the club's fans.
Tevez and his compatriot Javier Mascherano moved to Upton Park in a controversial deal last August that prompted a Premier League investigation because of their association with the MSI group.

Although the Hammers were last week found to have been guilty of irregularities surrounding the transfers, they avoided a points deduction.

Tevez has played a key role in the team's recent good form which has lifted hopes that Alan Curbishley's side could still avoid the drop.

"There is a possibility I could stay," he told the club's official website.

"It is a case of sitting down with the directors of West Ham to sort out a few things, but certainly there is a chance I could stay with the club.

"The fine and everything surrounding my transfer is something for West Ham and the lawyers to take care of. My only concern, as always, is playing football.

"We will be doing everything we can to keep this club in the Premier League and for me it is an opportunity to repay the support the fans have shown me.

"They have supported me from day one and I have a very special relationship with them."
The 23-year-old has scored four goals in 27 appearances for the Hammers this season.

Source: football.co.uk