Salsa spice on Arctic night

By Adrian Harte in Liverpool

It was the night the Primera División came to Merseyside with visiting RC Deportivo La Coruña facing a Liverpool FC side managed by Rafael Benítez and featuring Spanish players Josemi, Luis García and Xabi Alonso. That gave their UEFA Champions League Group A match an added splash of salsa spice even if neither side could muster a goal.

Arctic chill
The Latin ambience at Anfield certainly did not extend to the weather with the air around Anfield having a distinctly Arctic chill. The permatanned Anders Frisk thus stood out and it was good to see the Swedish referee back to his prancing prime. Spanish style was also lacking in a frenetic opening but Alonso and García came increasingly to the fore as Liverpool took the game to the visitors.

García grace

Alonso contribution
Alonso, likened to a slimline Jan Molby on the cover of a Liverpool FC magazine this week, also impressed. The former Real Sociedad de Fútbol midfield player's contribution was less eye-catching, but his range of passing has given Liverpool's game a new edge and he dictated the match's flow.

Valerón subdued
Juan Carlos Valerón had been picked out by Benítez as the player who makes Depor tick but his only contribution in the early stages was to pick up a booking for petulantly kicking the ball away after he had been penalised. The Depor fans were equally subdued but that was hardly surprising given their number. Looking off to my left during one of the few pauses for breath in the first half, it took mere seconds to tot up the Galician 200 behind Chris Kirkland's goal. That from a total attendance of 40,236.

Outstanding Baroš
Irrespective of the Spanish subplot, the game's outstanding player was Milan Baroš. The Czech striker raced on to Dieter Hamann's precise pass after 17 minutes but just as he prepared to pull the trigger, a combination of Jorge Andrade and José Molina succeeded in denying what seemed a certain goal. Later a typical eyes-down run was followed by a fierce low shot that flew centimetres wide

Owen remembered
Indeed, such was Baroš's contribution that memories of Michael Owen may yet fade at Anfield. However, the stadium's biggest cheer came at half-time with news from Spain of his first goal for Real Madrid CF against FC Dynamo Kyiv. And that pang of loss intensified the longer Liverpool lacked a goal to match their sometimes superb approach play.

Galician grit
Flair, style and guile are the words most commonly associated with the Spanish game, but, as Benítez showed at Valencia CF, discipline, determination and dogged defence are not far behind. No team has better embodied those traits than Depor in recent seasons. The Galician grit was embodied in Jorge Andrade and César Martin in defence and the ageless Mauro Silva and Aldo Duscher in midfield.

Return encounter
A Spanish stalemate at Anfield then, and the return encounter will be crucial in the tightest of groups as El Liverpool travel to La Coruna two weeks.