Atlético Madrid v Liverpool - as it happened

7.46pm: The BBC's Colin Murray hones his MOT2 schtick on Five, knowing that his own season is going to end in high-profile success even if Liverpool's does not. And given that the pre-match talk is all about the Reds' two-day trek across Europe to reach Madrid, my opening question to you is this: have you ever gone on annoyingly long and complex journeys that ended with massive disappointment? On a recent trip to the Lake District I went on a significantly-longer-than-anticipated outing to some old country house (I can't remember its name, but it was near Ulverston, country-house fact-checking fans). It was supposed to have a good farm shop, and I (long story) needed to source some local cheeses. I took several wrong turnings, and had quite a stressful time on some very narrow and icy roads, but finally I arrived at their gilded gates. They were closed. I went home. Anyway, I'm sure you can do better than that. Teams to come imminently. 7.49pm: And here are those teams: Atlético Madrid: De Gea; Ujfalusi, Perea, Alavaro Dominguez, Antonio Lopez; Paulo Assuncao, Raul Garcia; Simao, Jurado, Reyes; Forlan. Subs: Sergio Asenjo, Valera, Camacho, Salvio, Juanito, Cabrera, Borja. Liverpool: Reina; Johnson, Carragher, Kyrgiakos, Agger; Mascherano, Lucas; Kuyt, Gerrard, Benayoun; Ngog. Subs: Cavalieri, Aquilani, Babel, Degen, El Zhar, Ayala, Pacheco. Referee: Laurent Duhamel (France). 7.52pm: "It has been such a disappointment that the coverage of Liverpool's journey has ended," writes Ross Carroll. "How was their trip from the hotel to the stadium? I hope you can tell us in great detail their heroic journey from the visitors changing room to the pitch at the very least." I'll do my very best. 7.57pm: Annoying journeys, part one: "I once hopped between five different buses on my way to ask the girl I loved to marry me," reports Sadique. "She flatly refused. It can't get any worse than that, can it?" We'll see about that. 8.02pm: The players are out. What are your impressions of Colin Murray? Me, I like him for rather selfish reasons (he once sent me a nice email praising something I wrote, which was astonishingly good of him). Steve Peake, however, does not: "Great face for radio. Great voice for mime. Why?" 1min: Peeeeep! They're off! 3mins: Liverpol spend two minutes passing the ball about in their own half before Carragher pumps it 60 yards towards Ngog. Amazingly, they didn't lose possession as a result, though they didn't create a chance either. 5mins: An old-fashioned European game, so far. By which I mean, lots of passing a long way from goal, no hint of an attack worthy of the name. "Colin Murray's favourite sport is baseball," writes Eddie Radford. "No further comment required." 8mins: "There's no tempo to the game," says Graham Taylor, for the 18th time so far. GOAL! Atlético Madrid 1 Liverpool 0 (Forlan, 10) A cross from the left finds Diego Forlan completely unmarked. He gets his header totally wrong, it hits him on his left ear and drops over his left shoulder, close enough for him to recover and stab the rebound off Reina's legs and over the line. 11mins: Sotirios Kyrgiakos was marking the near post for the goal, totally uselessly. 11mins: Forlan is played through with a simple chipped pass over the top of the Liverpool defence. By the time he has the ball under control, he's 15 yards clear of the nearest defender. The linesman rules him offside, wrongly. 13mins: Perhaps the first eight minutes was just about lulling Liverpool into a daze of complacency. They're all over the place now. 14mins: And when they do clear the ball as far as Ngog, it bounces 10 yards off his clueless shins and they're under pressure again. Atlético knock the ball out of play, and Carragher takes the opportunity to give Kyrgiakos a bit of a rollicking. 17mins: Comedy travel story of the night so far, from Brian Cruickshank: "I remember going to a darts game, mid-winter, just outside of Toronto. We were in my friends station wagon, old Ford about 22 feet long, no suspension, he was a painter so it was filled with weird odours and all his cans of paint, drop sheets etc. We stopped for some slices of corned beef and buns, tins of Iron bru at the Scottish bakery, ate them en-route to the highway to take us to our destination. Well fed he lit a smoke and the entire car exploded from the collected fumes. We pulled over, fire trucks came, what a mess. Forfeited the league that night as we didn't make the game." 18mins: A reciprocal dodgy linesman decision sees the flag go up as Benayoun latches onto Kuyt's mishit shot and slams the ball brilliantly into the back of the net. Then Gerrard bursts into the box down what was once known as the inside left channel and shoots wide of the near post. 26mins: So a quarter of the game (and a little bit) gone and not a totally discouraging start for Liverpool. In the last 10 minutes or so they've had a bit of dangerous attacking possession. No reason why they can't get an away goal here. Of course, though, they might concede a few... 29mins: Atlético "trying to bore their opponents to death", says Five's commentator, instants before they send Forlán steaming towards the Liverpool penalty area. He falls over. 32mins: I know Ngog is only young, and might yet blossom to greatness, but as it stands he's not really an adequate leader of the line at the highest level. I'm not the first person to say that, am I? 36mins: Even when they get, and keep, the ball near Atlético's area Liverpool aren't quite convincing. A long passing move ends with an improvised, hurried cross from Kuyt and, eventually, a rubbish attempted overhead from Ngog. 39mins: Liverpool are having some joy when they Johnson overlaps on the right, with either him or Kuyt finding space quite easily. Still no decent chances, but plenty of encouragement. 40mins: "I've been on loads of long and annoying journeys that ended in disappointment," writes Robin Hazlehurst. "They were called student pub-crawls." 42mins: Talking of overlapping right-backs, Ujfalusi breaks into the Liverpool penalty area, drops a shoulder and for a moment it all opens up for him. By the time he shot it had all closed down again, and the ball is deflected wide. 44mins: "You're looking for an example of a long journey that ends up in a disappointing dead end?" writes Gary Naylor. "Well, I've one that's lasted nearly 47 years." 45mins: The referee gives precisely 0 seconds of stoppage time, and blows his whistle. Half-time: It's not exactly been a thriller. Though we're reaching the climax of a major European competition, this looks in many ways like the coming together of two rather humdrum, unexceptional teams. Strange, that. Clearly, Liverpool started badly, and their defence is not to be trusted, but they are good enough to score here. Now, another traveller's tale to tide you through the break: "My Brother set off from Perth Western Australia on the pretence of visiting family whilst actually planning a trip to some Belgian Trappist Brewery outside Bruges," writes Neil Walker. "After a day of driving then a half day of getting lost, the door was slammed in his face by a Monk who, whilst in the process of locking up, informed him they were closing down for a three-week holiday." 46mins: Peeeep! We're off! Again! And William Walsh is demanding Alberto Aquilani's introduction: "Not even Portsmouth so mismanaged their funds that they spent £20m for an Italian seat cover." 49mins: Liverpool, clearly scenting weakness in the home side, have started the second half quite positively, leaving more bodies in attack in the hope that Ngog's miscontrols might fall for them at some point. 51mins: Simao carries the ball towards Liverpool's penalty area, shapes to shoot, thinks better of it and, 25 yards out, just stops while Carragher plucks the ball from his toes and wellies it upfield. 54mins: Another simple chipped ball finds Forlán in the clear and onside. This time, the linesman doesn't flag. But his shot is, in Graham Taylor's word, "pathetic". A weak, off-balance flick of the outside of the boot that would have embarrassed my grandmother. "I've just made a big effort to get up off the sofa and go over to the fridge only to find there's no beer left, what journey could be more annoying or disappointing than that?" wonders Ben Bamford. 57mins: The referee, whose determination to let play flow has been quite commendable, waves play on while Jurado rolls around the ground. He was quite right to do so – play-acting of the most mendacious kind. The physio still comes on in the end. 58mins: Brilliant save from Reina. This time a cross from the right, Johnson falls over, Sabrosa volleys it into the ground and up towards the top corner and Reina shoots out a hand and pushes it wide. 60mins: Diego Forlán has just found a mobile phone on the pitch. On the touchline, Benítez is whispering instructions to Ryan Babel (perhaps because he can't find his phone). "What's worse: paying £20m for Aquilani and not playing him or paying £1.5m for Ngog and playing him?" ponders Lou Roper. 64mins: Liverpool in shot on goal shock! Gerrard has a pop from his own half. It's not on target, and the keeper got back anyway, but still, it's a start. Babel, meanwhile, is on for Ngog. 69mins: So Kuyt now is central, Babel wide on the right and Gerrard and Benayoun supporting. Given that the current scoreline really isn't a disaster, they're showing an admirable desire to change it. 71mins: The thing is, they're just not good enough. First, a few minutes ago, Babel got the ball in a good position in the box but couldn't make anything of it, then the same happens with Kuyt. Liverpool are a frustrating side to watch sometimes. 72mins: The referee stops play to have quite a long but apparently quite cheerful chat with Rafa Benítez. No one has a clue why. 73mins: "This game," writes Paulo Padilha, "is hurting my eyes." There's currently quite a lot of nothing-much-happening. Or, more accurately, something-threatening-to-happen. 76mins: Ujfalusi cuts in from the right wing and shoots left-footed from 20 yards, low and hard. Reina saves, but pushes the ball back in front of goal where Carragher, fortunately, gets to it first. 78mins: Atlético take advantage of another player-rolling-around-for-no-reason break to bring Valera on to replace Simao. 82mins: Watch out Europe, here comes Nabil El Zhar! 84mins: But before that, Kyrgiakos is booked for complaining to the referee after he was (arguably) pushed and (definitely) trodden on from Gerrard's overhit free-kick. Then, El Zhar comes on for Benayoun. 84mins: Forlán comes off, Salvio replacing him. The game's flow, such as it was, has gone completely now. 86mins: Probably Liverpool's best attacking move of the match ends when Gerrard's low ball across goal, destined to be tapped in by Glen Johnson, is deflected away at full stretch by a desperate defender. 87mins: "My wife, who did arabic (at Cambridge, dont you know!) tells me that El Zhar means 'the corner'," writes Navraj. Excellent knowledge. I'm all for boring everyday noun surnames. It always tickled me that Ravanelli means radishes. 90mins: Three minutes of stoppage time to be added. 90+2mins: A last-minute corner for Atlético. Could they grab a killer second? 90+3mins: Another corner. Can they create something this time? 90+3mins: Nope. 90+3mins: And it's all over. Full-time: I am just delighted that I didn't spend three weeks crawling on my stomach across mainland Europe to watch that, or however they got there. There was a rubbish goal. There were two other decent shots, both saved by Reina. There wasn't much else. On the plus side, it's finely balanced, Atlético look far from unbeatable and we can now look forward to another of those "great European nights" that Anfield specialises in. Point of information: "Thingy's wife clearly didn't study too hard at Cambridge," insists Chris Lucas. "Zhar means florist, not corner!"