Hard to watch as whipping boys take second-half hiding

TV View: George Hamilton: "Milan have split Liverpool apart! Like an axe-man cleaving a trunk of a tree! Liverpool burst asunder! It's a hard day's night!"

Jim Beglin: "Men against boys!" Clive Tyldesley: "Ooooh...noooOO!" Andy Gray: "I hate to say it: but it's over!" George: "I don't think it's a cup of tea Liverpool need at half-time, it's smelling salts!" Johnny Giles: "Dreadful stuff!" Liam Brady: "It could be a humiliation now!"

So, very much like the rest of us, once Milan scored their third, the telly folk fully anticipated what happened in that second half in Istanbul. Well, you could see it coming, couldn't you? Which of us didn't have a hunch Djimi Traore and Paolo Maldini would swap boots and Jerzy Dudek would achieve Liverpudlian mortality on a Kenny Dalglish scale? Blindingly obvious.

It was Gabby Yorath, while chatting to Terry Venables and Steve McManaman at half-time on ITV, who forewarned us: "If AC Milan can score three goals in the first half why not Liverpool in the second?"

True, Steve and Tel and the entire viewing audience exchanged it's-the-way-she-tells

-'em glances, while valiantly trying to stifle giggles, but, like ourselves, deep down, they felt it in their bones: Steven Gerrard would be the man sleeping with Big Ears that night.

Gilesie, too, shared this gut feeling, predicting a big second half for the Liverpool captain.

"Gerrard, as usual in the big matches, has disappeared. Nowhere. No influence on the game whatsoever," he said. "Liverpool have come up against a real team. It's a reality check tonight. This is real football. They're totally outclassed, all over the pitch."

The omens were good then. And, as forecast, Liverpool scored three goals in the time it takes to boil two softish, but not too runny, eggs. Boom, boom, boom, and suddenly sport made even less sense than it ever did before. Which was never much, to be honest.

George: "UnbelieeEEEevable!" Andy Townsend: "Where did THAAAAT come from?" Clive: "Oooh, it's gonna be a hard day's night if Liverpool get their hands on the European Cup!" Bill O'Herlihy: "We're dumbstruck here!" Brady: "I didn't believe in destiny and fate in football before tonight, but I do now!" Giles: "If you were writing a little essay about it you wouldn't believe it, would you?"

Bill, Liam, Eamon Dunphy and the rest of the inhabitants of planet earth: "Eh, no."

Over on Sky Sports the emergency services had been called to peel Phil Thompson off the ceiling. Thommo had been emotional enough at half-time, noting, calmly, that "EVEN STEVIE WONDER WOULD HAVE SPOTTED THAT" when reviewing footage of an alleged Milan handball; by full-time he was on his mobile to Stevie Wonder II, aka Stevie G, singing I Just Called to Say I Love You.

Evertonians, Mancs and Boris Johnson, meanwhile, opted for a different soundtrack for the night that was in it, dusting down their favourite old single and, while pouring a stiffish glass of brandy, placing it on the turntable. And what a fine tune Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now remains.

But even they, much as it hurt, had to concede, however bitterly and grudgingly, that Liverpool's own website downplayed the comeback when describing it as "amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring, breathtaking, extraordinary, hair-raising, heart-stirring, magnificent, marvellous, miraculous, moving, overwhelming spectacular, spine-tingling, striking, stunning, stupefying, stupendous and wonderful".

And with the brandy bottle empty they battened down the hatches in preparation for those homilies about there being no sporting life beyond Liverpool FC. And, inevitably, they came.

Our favourite response came from the Manchester City fan who insisted his team's comeback against Gillingham in the 1999 Division Two play-off final remained the greatest of all time. Hey, who's to argue? Bless him. And the Offaly man who politely recalled the last five minutes against Limerick in the 1994 hurling final. Depends where your heart resides, one supposes.

The telly experts, of course, took a battering. Even those Liverpool fans who left the stadium in Istanbul at half-time were critical. Experts? Bah! The Liverpool fan who called BBC Radio 5 to declare, earlier in the season, that "if Bill Shankly was alive today he'd be turning in his grave" might even have castigated Gilesie and Co. Not to mention the lad who said a season ago it would be better if Liverpool didn't qualify for the Champions League because they would only be humiliated. Good lord, even the believers didn't believe! After Wednesday? You'd be inclined to believe in magic. Which, damn it, is what we witnessed in Istanbul.