LFC 1 - Feyenoord 1 (game jam 2am 6 Ogos 2007)

Port of Rotterdam Tournament
Reina saves Benítez from blushes
as Liverpool stumble
Feyenoord 1 - 1 Liverpool
Drenthe 44; Gerrard 71
Andrew Fifield at De Kuip Stadium
Monday August 6, 2007 The Guardian

Rafael Benítez's ambitions this season stretch much further than the Port of Rotterdam tournament, but silverware is not to be sniffed at and the Spaniard departed here last night brooding on another missed opportunity.
Liverpool needed only to beat Feyenoord - a once great club, but now cast adrift amid the flotsam and jetsam of the Dutch Eredivisie - to claim their first trophy of the new campaign but they stumbled horribly. Instead, the spoils went to Porto after the Merseyside club could not overturn Royston Drenthe's 44th-minute opener, with Pepe Reina avoiding further embarrassment by saving Luigi Bruins' late penalty.

Pre-season tournaments are a notoriously shaky barometer of a side's prospects but this was not the first time this pre-season that Liverpool had faltered with the finishing line in sight. They were beaten on penalties by Portsmouth in the final of the Barclays Asia Trophy last month and, given the pressing need for palpable success at Anfield, Benítez can only hope his new-look side are not developing a potentially costly habit of choking on the big occasion.
They were thwarted here by poor luck and even worse finishing, although there was a silver lining in a typically astute equaliser by Steven Gerrard and the performance of Dirk Kuyt. The 27-year-old deserved a goal for a display brimming with industry but, not for the first time, the net remained undisturbed.
Benítez can feel generally satisfied with his summer's work, although whether his already travel-weary side needed yet another foreign sortie is debatable. Liverpool had already toiled in Hong Kong and Switzerland this summer so a weekend spent broiling in The Tub - the nickname for Feyenoord's cauldron-like stadium - was not perhaps ideal preparation for a potentially draining campaign.
And this was not an occasion when Liverpool could afford to stroll. Whereas Friday's knockabout against Shanghai Shenhua, the Chinese club, had been played at a funereal pace, there was an added zest and zip to last night's encounter, sparked largely by the ear-splitting din created by a near-capacity crowd.
The Het Legioen had turned out not simply to salute their own side but also a returning colossus. Kuyt, who scored 71 goals over three richly rewarding years in this city before joining Liverpool for £9m last summer, was greeted with a cacophonous roar before kick-off and his presence - together with that of Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Andriy Voronin - guaranteed a sense of occasion.
For Kuyt this was a golden opportunity. The high-profile arrival of Fernando Torres has made him an endangered species at Anfield and he would have shifted uncomfortably in his seat last Friday when the Spaniard deftly opened his Liverpool account against Shanghai.
But if Kuyt was feeling the pressure he did not show it. He took only seven minutes to send a venomous shot fizzing over the crossbar and moments later a typically marauding run was capped by a cute lay-off to Voronin, who embarrassingly missed his kick from six yards.
A role-reversal in the 16th minute almost put Liverpool ahead. Voronin's through-ball to Kuyt was weighted to perfection and the Dutchman comfortably shrugged off the attention of his markers before barging into the area and pinging a firecracker shot off the woodwork.
Liverpool's dominance was total, but it also bred complacency. They were given a warning in the 27th minute when Andwele Slory sprang their offside trap only to lose his footing at the crucial moment.
Seconds before half-time Giovanni van Bronckhorst's pass set Slory speeding away from the dawdling John Arne Riise for a second time. His shot clattered against the right-hand post but the loose ball fell kindly to Drenthe, who drilled in from eight yards.
Liverpool seemed stung by falling behind and they quickly began to turn the screw after the restart. Sherif Ekramy, the Feyenoord goalkeeper, was forced into an athletic flying save from Xabi Alonso's spiteful shot in the 56th minute and Voronin fluffed another promising opening after a spirited run by Ryan Babel, the substitute. Babel was not finished there. With 19 minutes remaining the youngster - booed at every turn on account of his Ajax background - careered forward again and slipped a pass to Gerrard, who finished adroitly under Ekramy.
In the 86th minute Feyenoord were handed a golden chance to take the spoils when Alvaro Arbeloa handled Drenthe's cross in the area but Reina - well versed in saving penalties in crucial encounters - proved equal to Bruins' spot-kick.
The night ended on a sour night when Gerrard became involved in an ugly shoving match with Theo Lucius after the winger had been fouled just outside the penalty area. A melee ensued, with Alonso and Daniel Agger wading in for good measure, but the referee, Pieter Vink, rather generously opted to award nothing more than yellow cards to Alonso and Drenthe.