Chelsea Escape defeat At Anfield in Champions League's 1st leg SF

Liverpool 1(Dirk Kuyt 43) Chelsea 1(Riise own goal 90+4)

Chelsea escaped from Liverpool with a 1-1 draw after the first leg of their Champions League semi-final on Tuesday, rescued by an injury time own goal from substitute John Arne Riise. Dirk Kuyt had given Liverpool the lead after 43 minutes when he fired between goalkeeper Petr Cech’s legs and with almost five minutes of injury time played, it looked as though Liverpool would take a deserved lead to Stamford Bridge for next week’s second leg. However with Austrian referee Ko Plautz looking at his watch, Chelsea stitute Salomon Kalou lofted one last h ball into the Liverpool penalty area. ise, who had replaced the injured Fa Aurelio after 62 minutes, stooped t and head the ball clear, but instead ed it past helpless goalkeeper Pepe Reina and into the roof of his own net. It gave Chelsea a share of the spoils they hardly deserved as Liverpool dominated for long periods but were denied by some outstanding saves from Cech. With time almost up, it looked as though the seventh meeting between the teams in the Champions League in the last four seasons was about to end in a 1-0 scoreline for the fourth time. Instead, this match became the first to produce two goals and leave the tie on a knife-edge with Chelsea the slight favourites to advance to the final in Moscow on May 21. Although Chelsea started the brighter, they failed to create any real scoring chances. Their best opportunity in the opening exchanges came after only three minutes when Didier Drogba saw his free-kick deflected to safety by the wall. The breakthrough eventually came two minutes before half-time after a sustained period of Liverpool pressure. The move began with a quickly taken free-kick by Xabi Alonso who found Kuyt. His cross was headed clear by John Terry to Lampard who was dispossessed by Kuyt. The ball ran to Alonso who found Javier Mascherano, and his miscued shot beat Claude Makelele’s atted head er, allowing Kuyt to fire ugh C ech’s legs to put Liverpool ahead. It was the third time he had scored in knockout rounds after goals against Milan and Arsenal and looked to have done enough to win the match. Cech then denied Torres with another fine stop at his near post and Chelsea took full advantage.