One hand on the Trophy? Don't let it slip!

Have you ever played Super Mario Kart? If the answer is yes and you were a good player, you'll certainly remember the moment when you were in the final part of the last race of the game. Now imagine that in that precise moment, when you're 100 m far from the finish line, you slip on one of the notorious Super Mario Kart banana peels and you lose not only the race but also the whole trophy. 

What happened on Sunday afternoon at Anfield Road strongly resembles that kind of experience on the iconic video game for Nintendo 64. Liverpool, leader of the table, would have reached the final trophy (the first Premier League in their history) with a victory over title rivals Chelsea, but Steven Gerrard's slip around the end of the first half allowed Demba Ba to score and to secure a crucial victory for Mourinho's eleven.

It's intriguing and tragic at the same time that the slide came from Liverpool's most iconic player, its Super Mario, its captain and the symbol of an unexpected and outstanding Reds' season. Stevie G. indeed, after the significant victory over Manchester City, gathered his mates in the middle of the pitch and boost them up saying: "We don't let this slip now". Yes, "slip", he used exactly that word.

Being the Liverpool captain known as "a silent leader", who is respected in the dressing room, but who prefers not to be too ostentatious on the pitch, his speech became immediately popular. Thus, it's even more a twist of the fate that he was the one who slipped on the crucial match of the year, allowing a defensive Chelsea to score the goal that closed the game.

On Sunday, as well as following passionately the match on the tv, I was also checking the official hashtag of the game on Twitter.
The tweets were clearly divided into two topics: on the one hand, there were all the jokes and the irony statements about Stevie G., and on the other hand there was Jose Mourinho. Would you have ever thought of somebody else? I really don't think so.

There's one scene explaining how Sunday's victory over Liverpool was not only the team's one, but also the Special One's personal win: his celebration after the final whistle. And it was indeed his victory, because it was not only wisely prepared from a tactical point of view, but especially because of the Mourinho's off the pitch handling of it.

During the days preceding the match, the Portuguese manager created a buzz by saying that he was going to ask the permission of the club to place the second team on the pitch, in order to save the players' energy for the CL return leg against Atletico Madrid (which, as we saw yesyerday night, didn't go in the desired way).

If you add this to his strategy to declare Chelsea as a team not ready to win the title, you understand how he succeeded to put so much pressure on Brendan Rodgers' players, who felt obliged to secure a win.

Moreover, from a tactical point of view, Mourinho decided to park in front of Schwarzer's goal the

same bus that some days before denied Atletico Madrid a goal at Vicente Calderon. The strategy worked again, as Chelsea scored twice although Liverpool got 73% of ball possession. It's a significative stat but, as the CL semifinals between Bayern and Real proved, ball possession means nothing in modern football.

Some might say that Mourinho is just a lucky man or that he is the anti-football. You can agree with them, but, at the end of the story, football relies on results and luck helps winners. It's impossible to deny that, thanks to Mourinho and his players, we now have a thrilling end of the season in England, probably one of the most exciting ever.

With 3 laps to go, the race is still extremely open. Manchester City has its fate in his hand, as thanks to the goal difference it would be the first to cross the finish line by winning all the games. Liverpool must win the 3 games as well, and has to hope that it's slipping time for the other two teams (especially for City who'll play Everton this weekend).

But who knows that Chelsea, whose manager has always declared not to be in the title race, could throw the notorious Super Mario Kart bananas' peels and ruin the party to Reds and Citiziens? At the end, It's just a question of slipping...