Chelsea 0 Liverpool 0: There is only a single impassioned match at Anfield to come but the Champions League final itself looks like a speck in the distance. Immense efforts will surely be required before one of these trenchant teams get the better of the other.
This was a mediocre match that has tipped the balance towards Liverpool by no more than a degree and they will be without Xabi Alonso for the return match. The playmaker is suspended following a late booking.
Following Chelsea's meetings with Barcelona and Bayern Munich this was a deficient game. In some senses, it was easy to identify what and who it lacked.
Damien Duff failed a fitness test so comprehensively at five o'clock that the club must quake over his prospects of recovering in time for the return match next Tuesday. Arjen Robben is in better condition, but an ankle problem is causing him pain and he was among the substitutes.
Liverpool, for much of the season, were a club undermined by injuries. A potential role reversal was, therefore, in process.
Liverpool, on the evidence of their accomplished draw away to Juventus, are in any case difficult to breach in European competition. Their resources had, in addition, been deepened since that night of tactical prowess because captain Steven Gerrard had served his suspension.
While Chelsea's attacks were not quite as deftly articulated as usual, Joe Cole appreciated that he would have to provide the bulk of the team's runs from his flank since it is the style of Eidur Gudjohnsen, on the left, always to move inside and link with the midfield.
The Icelander did release Cole with a pass that sprang the off-side trap after 14 minutes, but, although Didier Drogba got the break of the ball from the ensuing cross, he screwed his finish well wide.
Within five minutes, an even better opportunity was manufactured on the left. Drogba awkwardly worked the ball on to his right foot and hit a deep delivery. Cole headed down but then came a touch of the unexpected. Frank Lampard, so often the midfield marksman, fired high.
Liverpool, though, were neither breathing heavily nor sighing with relief. In a game of a jerky quality there had been menacing lurches into Chelsea's area and Ricardo Carvalho, so often authoritative, did not hold sway on those occasions.
Taking a pass from Alonso in the 19th minute, John Arne Riise came across, but, having put the ball on to his unfavoured right foot, could do no more than steer a finish to Petr Cech. Six minutes before the interval the goalkeeper made an even better save to tip away a Milan Baros header from Gerrard's cross.
Any fleeting inaccuracies did not mask the improvement in Liverpool when measured against the Chelsea standard.
On this ground in November, the only ambitions they had were for damage limitation before Cole's goal beat them in the Premiership fixture. In the League Cup final an immediate opener for Liverpool threw them into such confusion that they passed the ball miserably before eventually succumbing to Chelsea.
They were more enterprising and mature here. By the interval there could have been complaints about the errors and patchiness of the match, but all of that would have met with Rafael Benitez's approval if it meant that the first leg of the semi-final was not doing Chelsea's bidding.
The margin of comfort for Mourinho's men was occasionally thin to the verge of disappearance. So it was that Glen Johnson had to succeed, during one first-half episode with a hair's-breadth tackle on Luis Garcia, who had cavorted past Carvalho.
The spectacle stayed meagre no matter how often the crowd was willing to raise its excitement to a level in keeping with the ticket prices.
The action showed that clichés travel well and the observation that semi-finals often disappoint was as valid for a European clash as it is for a domestic engagement.
Robben, sore ankle or not, could not be left to convalesce in the dug-out and he took over from the disappointing Tiago with almost an hour gone. The reputation of the game had suffered, with defenders taking up too much of the credit.
And the tension told at times. John Terry, who had been hurt in an exchange with Garcia at the beginning of the night, might have been suspected of a reprisal when he stood on the Spaniard's ankle after 70 minute.
Memories will be long in the protracted endeavours of this tie.
CHELSEA: Cech, Johnson, Terry, Ricardo Carvalho, Gallas, Tiago (Robben 59), Makelele, Lampard, Gudjohnsen, Drogba, Cole (Kezman 78). Subs Not Used: Cudicini, Smertin, Geremi, Forssell, Huth. Booked: Cole, Kezman.
LIVERPOOL: Dudek, Finnan, Hyypia, Traore, Carragher, Riise, Gerrard, Alonso, Biscan (Kewell 86), Luis Garcia (Smicer 90), Baros (Cisse 65). Subs Not Used: Carson, Le Tallec, Nunez, Warnock. Booked: Biscan, Alonso.
Referee: A Sars (France).
