http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/greg_lalas/04/30/milan.champions/index.html

Sometimes we simply have no choice but to drop our veil of objectivity and just be unabashed partisans. This week -- the week of the Champions League semifinal second legs -- is one of those times.

How could any fan of the this beautiful game -- or for that matter, anyone with a competitive gene in his body -- stay impartial when a Liverpool-Milan 2005 rematch is a mouth-watering possibility?

The history is so palpable, even in a bar in Cambridge, Mass., where a choir of Liverpool fans serenaded a small cadre of Milan fans in the corner with this little ditty:

Three-nil, and you f---ed it up! Three-nil, and you f---ed it up!

There's really only one place in Beantown to go if you want to enjoy a European soccer game: the Phoenix Landing, a dark soccer-friendly pub in Central Square.

On Champions League match days, especially if Liverpool is playing, the Phoenix Landing transforms from a spot where MIT geniuses have a beer before going back to curing cancer into a satellite version of Anfield's famous "Kop," complete with red scarves coiled around every neck, Gerrard jerseys clinging to mountainous British beer bellies and unintelligible bursts of Liverpudlian-accented cheering.

But there is always a corner left open for other games and other fans. On this day, while Liverpool was dismantling PSV Eindhoven, the little corner TVs showed Milan vs. Bayern Munich. Whenever Milan scored and the dinky tribe of Milanistas cheered, the Liverpool fans -- already with several pints of Harp in them -- would start their chant. Everyone chuckled, even the Italians, although theirs was a bittersweet laughter.