Crystal Palace - 2 (Rubins 56. Morrison 77.)
Liverpool - 1 (Smicer 78.)

Wow! I wonder if one can really start a match report with a single word? And one so impressive as that? If not, bad luck, as I think I rather like it. As is usual in games of this calibre Palace went into the match as very firm underdogs, but despite the Liverpool pressure they came out the other end of the match as the victors.

The first part of the proceedings certainly belonged to the visitors, and it was not at all unusual to see the Palace faithful with their heads in their hands, perhaps just peeking through their outstretched fingers. The best chance of the opening exchanges fell to Michael Owen. Emile Heskey cut through the defence then pushed the ball back into the path of the on-rushing Owen. With no one to beat other than Alex Kolinko in goal he somehow managed to balloon his shot over the top of the bar. Heskey then pushed his shot straight at Alex when he really should have done a little better with the opportunity, but he was being hassled by Fan Zhiyi at the time.

Heskey then repeated Owen's attempt on goal and blasted the ball over the top when it looked far easier to score, and if the run of play was with Liverpool the run of luck was certainly with Palace. Danny Murphy saw his shot blocked by Alex and Owen put one wide before Palace even looked like getting a shot on goal, at least one in anger. It was Clinton Morrison that came closest to opening the scoring when Mikael Forssell put a perfect pass on to his boot and the shot flew towards the top corner of the net. The reflexes of Sander Westerveld was the only thing that stood between Palace and a goal, and it was a beautiful save, even in the eyes of the Palace supporters. Needless to say the applause was for Clinton's strike and not Sander's save though.

Before the break Steve Gerrard and Owen both fired shots wide of the mark, and Palace would have been relieved to have gone to the break all-square. The supporters certainly were!

The second half opened, but Palace were now looking far more confident than they did in the opening period of play. It took only 11 minutes for them to show the visitors how to go about converting chances into goals. A great break down the centre saw the ball passed to Andrejs Rubins slightly on the left side of play. He timed his run sweetly and fired a rocket-shot towards the top corner of the goal. Almost before the keeper could see it coming the ball was in the back of the net, and the Palace crowd was at first stunned, then ecstatic that we had actually taken the lead.

In response Owen, Nick Barmby, and finally substitute Jari Litmanen all failed to finish off perfectly easy shots, which started to give our supporters the belief that we may indeed take a lead into the Anfield leg of the tie. It was certainly starting to look as if it would not be the visitors night.

Mikael ended up with the ball way out on the left, and he calmly sent the cross in to the middle. Never one to miss an opportunity such as this Clinton was on hand to swivel and hit the ball first time into the back of the net, and claim a 2-0 advantage. If you thought the crowd was happy with the first strike you should have heard them after this one!

Whilst the fans were still applauding and getting ready to get back to their seats Liverpool immediately struck back courtesy of their two substitutes. Litmanen played a neat ball through to Vladimir Smicer and the ball was in the back of the net before anyone in the home defence could move. The score was back to 2-1, and Liverpool had gained that all-important away goal.

The last 12 minutes or so of the game went by in a blur, and despite the goal being conceded it would have been very hard to wipe the smiles off the faces of Alan Smith, the players and all the rest of the crew there on the night. Indeed, the smiles could be seen around the ground and around the world, on the faces of all those who were lucky enough to watch the game.

Somehow Alan now needs to work out a way of overcoming Liverpool in the second leg in a fortnight, but before that we have to worry about how to get past Nottingham Forest on Sunday, Sunderland, yet again, next Wednesday, and Gillingham next weekend. Once those matches are played, and hopefully won, Alan can then concentrate on a "master plan" to sink Liverpool and advance the side to the final of the Cup at the Millennium Stadium. Even should we fail we will be able to point to the record books in the future which will show that we met Liverpool in the semi-final, and we at least won one of those matches!

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Alex Kolinko, Dean Austin, Craig Harrison, Fan Zhiyi, Andrejs Rubins, Simon Rodger, Jamie Smith, Steve Thomson, Clinton Morrison, Hayden Mullins, Mikael Forssell.

Substitutes not used: Julian Gray, Matthew Gregg, Wayne Carlisle, Andrew Frampton, Jamie Pollock.

Liverpool: Sander Westerveld, Stephane Henchoz, Sami Hyypia, Jamie Carragher, Igor Biscan, Markus Babbel, Steven Gerrard, Danny Murphy (Jari Litmanen 64), Nick Barmby (Dietmar Hamann 77), Emile Heskey, Michael Owen (Vladimir Smicer 64).

Substitutes not used: Jorgen Nielsen, Gary McAllister.

Attendance: 25,933

Referee: Mr U Rennie (Sheffield).