Wine and Dreams

Tonight is the Night: Champions League Final in Istanbul between powerhouse AC Milan and consummate underdogs Liverpool.

Accompanying the team will be legions of supporters, likely many of those seen by Tim and I in Trafalgar Square shortly before the Jeffrey Simpson talk, with banners such as the legendary one seen above. [I only hope I get to utter that gem of a line in its true context some day!]

Can Liverpool compete the near-impossible task and cap this dreamlike run? We hope so. To set the stage, consider this report filed from Istanbul by Chief Times Sports writer Simon Barnes. He concludes:

"Football can do rum things and one of the rummest of them is the way a team can be the stuff of category-three dreams one moment and the stuff of a category-one nightmare the next. This European Cup has inspired Liverpool: success has followed success, with the inevitability of a chain of logic. Liverpool, asked to make their supporters dream, have grown increasingly committed to the vision of the just-about-achievable. And with every step they have taken this season, it has become that little bit more achievable.

They are not a great team, but they are capable of great things. They might — might — just pull off something lastingly great tonight. It’s a dream, yes, of course it’s a dream. That’s the whole bloody point."

C'mon you Reds!