A Difference Like Between Day and Night

It couldn’t possibly have been the torrential rain. It shouldn’t bother the English, nor their game. Especially not when they’re from Manchester, where, and this may or may not be true, it always rains. Or at least I think so. But it couldn’t have been the rain.

It might have been the stadium. At certain times during the game, the camera seemed to wobble up and down a little. That wasn’t due to a cameraman with a sporadic case of severe Parkinson’s. That was the stadium moving up and down a little. So it might have been the stadium. But certainly, Manchester are used to a roaring stadium.

It may have been the flurry of injuries. It can be difficult to cope with such a string of bad fortune. But there were fewer injured players than last time around. So it couldn’t have been that, either.

Inexperience, possibly? Certainly not. A side fielding van der Sar, Giggs and Scholes does not lack experience. They know what it takes to win, and, more importantly, they know how to lead. Even the inexperience of young guns like Rooney and Ronaldo is relative. Both have played two major - and very eventful – tournaments. They know the turmoil that comes with big matches like these.

It might have been a combination of all of these things, but truthfully, it was something else entirely. The difference between the first and the last game wasn’t the rain, it wasn’t the stadium, the injuries or the inexperience. It was Milan. Jack van Gelder, a Dutch football presenter, confronted a slightly confused and/or intimidated Dirk Kuijt via telephone after the game. Kuijt told him he had never seen Man U play as poorly as tonight, and van Gelder abruptly and rightfully interrupted the Liverpool striker.

‘But can’t you only play as well as your opponent lets you?’

Kuijt, and everybody else who saw Milan’s absolutely gorgeous perfect first half yesterday, could only agree.

I'm rather swamped as of late, but check back Saturday for another edition of The Cat's Meow and Sunday, the day of the Dutch Cup final, for a two-post piece on my first Cup Final experience