C'mon you Reds...

I watch a few games of football, generally on a pub TV, but, more often than not, they disappoint. The great Pelé insisted that football was “the beautiful game”, but I’m not so sure. The cheating, the diving, the time-wasting, the needless ‘claiming’ of throw-ins, corners and penalties, the haranguing of the referee: all tend to make the average game a bad-tempered affair. Sometimes I prefer to listen to a game on the radio, because “the pictures are better”.

Yet, despite my misgivings, some games I have to see, and one of them is on TV tonight. After the first leg at Anfield, Liverpool are leading Roma 5-3, and tonight is the second leg in Rome, with the winner going on to meet Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League. Games don’t come much bigger than that. A sub-plot is that Liverpool’s Mo Salah was bought from Roma last season. He cost £30,000,000 which, by the grotesque financial standards of the Premiere League, is beginning to look like a bargain.

Salah is an appealing character, especially for a footballer. He doesn't dive; he doesn't need to. He plays with a smile on his face, hasn't been given a yellow card this season, is breaking all records for scoring goals (43 for the season so far) and, unlike most footballers, doesn’t spend too much time in the barber’s chair. Salah thanks God for every goal he scores (when I think he ought to take most of the credit himself) and seems to thrive on the big occasions. So I’ll be in the pub tonight, rooting for the Reds.

Licensed this shot today, of a pub in Grasmere...