Uefa Champions League:It had gone midnight when Jose Reina, a magnum of champagne under his arm and his wife and baby at his side, emerged from the bowels of Anfield. The smile plastered across his face in the afterglow of victory would evaporate within the hour when he returned home to discover he had been burgled, but not even the loss of a Bang & Olufsen entertainment system and a Porsche could ruin this occasion.
"This feels amazing," said the Spaniard. "When I signed for this club, my aim was to win trophies, and now we have that chance. I'm so proud to be a part of this."
The ransacking of his house in Woolton - the car was discovered, burnt out, in West Derby at 6.30am yesterday morning - was a sting in the tail Reina could not have envisaged. But better times lie ahead. There will be an opportunity to become a European champion later this month.
Reina will be following in his father's footsteps when he walks out in Athens on May 23rd, Miguel Reina having played in goal for Atletico Madrid against Bayern Munich in Brussels back in 1974. That final went to a replay before Uli Hoeness and Gerd Muller each scored twice in a 4-0 win. For one Spanish family, Athens 2007 is an opportunity for redemption.
Yet the Liverpool goalkeeper's main concern at present will be to convince his father to attend. "He suffers when he watches me live," he said. "It can be dangerous. He has had some health problems - nothing serious, it's more to do with nerves. He has only been to watch me six or seven times during my whole career, and it's difficult for him as a father who was also a goalkeeper. He knows the situation, what one mistake can mean, so he prefers not to watch me live.
"He came to the PSV Eindhoven game last month but that was only because the tie was all but over and we were 3-0 up from the first game. But I will try to convince him to come to Athens."
Reina, at 24, was not born when his father featured against Bayern in Belgium. Luis Aragones had given Atletico the lead with seven minutes of extra-time remaining in the first game when Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck struck an equaliser from 25 yards in the last minute. The replay, two days later, is best forgotten.
"We've never spoken much about that game, but now we have plenty of time to do so - 21 days, in fact," said the Liverpool goalkeeper, whose pair of penalty saves in the shoot-out wrecked Chelsea's challenge at Anfield.
Steven Gerrard strode away from Wednesday's game insisting that the Champions League finalists boast "the best goalkeeper in the world", despite the occasional high-profile error at the end of last season and the beginning of this.
Reina still conjured a post-war club record 55 clean sheets in his first 100 games for Liverpool, though it is his startling ability to save from the penalty spot which has truly caught the eye. He saved seven of the nine penalties he faced in his last season at Villarreal prior to his £6 million switch to the Premiership, and set the tone for Wednesday's thwarting of Arjen Robben and Geremi with his display in the shoot-out in last season's FA Cup final against West Ham.
"My penalty record is down to luck, but you have to like football too," said Reina. "The more you watch games, the more information you learn. I didn't do too much different than I would normally do ahead of the Chelsea game but it is important to know what their players do at other moments. It depends always on the situation of the game - many things. I won't say too much more because that is my secret.
"To be a great goalkeeper, and that is what I am trying to be, you must be f***ing strong - excuse me for using that word. Your mistakes are magnified and, at a club like Liverpool, even more so. Every mistake is seen as the end of the world and you have to be very strong mentally to ignore that. But, throughout my career, I have had to be strong.
"The start of this season was like that, just like when I had to leave Barcelona. I learned a lot from that experience, having to take a step back to move forward again. I have done that now."
For Reina, Athens cannot come soon enough.
Guardian Service
