"Liverpool ressemble au Guingamp de national … 1"

Everything and everyone is moving a little more slowly in the Ottawacker household at the moment. Mrs. Ottawacker is now showing signs of what I have caught, and our best efforts and separating ourselves have not worked. She is made of sterner stuff than I, so hopefully it will get pretty short shrift. Ottawacker Jr. is still going strong though. He made his own dinner last night – cheese on toast from a YouTube recipe. It looked pretty good. I let him be the guinea pig though.
 
I am not feeling any worse – but probably not feeling any better either. My sickness has prevented me from taking the laptop in to be fixed, so it was to a silent stream that I gave my full attention in the afternoon. The stream was of the Paris Saint-German vs. Liverpool Champions League match. It really was the strangest game: PSG had something like 70% of the possession and 27 shots; Liverpool had 2. Yet, Liverpool won 1-0. Maybe it was the lack of screeching commentators, but I watched the game somewhat calmly, and didn’t really feel as if Liverpool were that troubled. Liverpool’s goalkeeper was on fine form – but that is what he is paid to do. If you pay massive wages to get the best in the world in a certain position, then what you are acquiring is talent, not luck. Perhaps only one of the saves he made was from a dangerous position – when there was a one-on-one and he came out to block; all of the rest, while being excellent saves, were what I would expect him to make (and the back-up keeper Kelleher too, to be honest). So, for all the talk of “being battered”, of “smash and grab”, of “grand larceny”, it was a backs-to-the-wall, solid, hardworking defensive display, capped off with smart substitutions and an excellent finish at the end.
 
Throughout the game, I got a series of texts from friends in France – some of whom support PSG. There was the initial “cocorico”, then the “putain, Liverpool ressemble au Guingamp de national … 1”. Then, as the game dragged on, there were fewer texts. When Harvey Elliott scored 2 minutes from the end, I got a solitary “merde” en guise de réponse. As nobody likes gloaters, and because revenge is a dish best served cold, I am keeping my powder dry and preparing a slew of mixed metaphor responses for next week, after the second leg. I will say this though: the result was never in doubt.