What a night!

After totally messing up my sleep cycle over the past two days, I hope I am able to get a nice 8 hours of sleep tonight.. I am not really complaining though after watching the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League...

Although the first semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool turned out to be a disappointment in terms of quality of football, there was no shortage of that in yesterday's encounter between PSV Eindhoven and AC Milan.. I am a big fan of AC Milan (largely because of one man, Paolo Maldini) and I would have to admit that PSV were desperately unlucky to concede the late goal to lose out on the away goals rule..

Personally, I was very pleased that it was two asian players who made a huge impact in this game, Ji-Sung Park, who scored the first goal and Young-Pyo Lee. I guess Guus Hiddink is carrying on the good work he did for Asian football during the last world cup.

Coming back to the match, PSV dominated play right from the word go. I am sure Milan would have started wondering whether last year was going to repeat itself. Van Bommel, Lucius, Johann Vogel, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, Jefferson Farfan - all these players played out of their skins.. I was not aware of too many of the PSV players as I had not watched a single match of theirs in the whole tournament. But from what I saw yesterday, it is really surprising that they had not scored more than one goal at home against any team in the Champions league this season. My man of the match would have to be Philip Cocu who came up with the all important header which got the aggregate score level. Even after Ambosini scored and secured the tie for Milan, Cocu came up with a stunning volley to score PSV's third goal and ensured that there were some frantic moments right at the end for Milan..

This match reminded me of two other matches involving France - one last year against England in Euro 2004 and the other against Italy in the final of Euro 2000. I am sure most football enthusiasts will remember Zidane's 2 late goals against England last year. The other match was when Italy seemed to be home with a 1-0 lead and France not really threatening their goal at all, when all of a sudden, Wiltord came up with an equalizer from nowhere.. The match extended to extra time and France got the Golden goal with Trezeguet scoring the winner. Up to the point when Wiltord scored, France never looked like scoring and Italy could have easily made it 2 if not 3-0.. However, what mattered was the fact that France was able to find the net at the right time.. Just like Ambrosini did yesterday 1 minute into injury time after the second half..

All in all, I am definitely happy that Milan have got through. At the end of the day, no-one is going to bother about how they got there. All that matters is that they'll be facing Liverpool in Istanbul..

I won't be able to watch the final though (sob sob).. I shall be on a stupid train heading home at that time.. What a tragedy.. So its not only PSV, even I am missing the final..