I'm getting that unsettled feeling again. Everything inside me is too real - I'm being weighed down and pulled on by the fearful depth of existence, and I can't hold it back. It would be better if it were outside me, better still if it existed less. It halts me before I can reach that productive rhythm and toys with me if I try to beat it back with meditation. It's going to be over soon, but there's no way of knowing in advance if it will strengthen or diminish me. I'm awaiting an execution, but wearing my sunday best, just in case.

We've been here before, many times. There's a rich modern history with no heritage before it. There's a loathing we can acknowledge as special. There's nothing but fear, hope and their embodiments in memory. It's hard to believe we would put ourselves through this again, but impossible to imagine how we could drag ourselves out of this game. Every year we will have something to prove or to defend, every year we will be threatened again.

This is the bizarre fear that has accompanied Liverpool's ascendence in European games, and latterly in the league. There is a great deal more to lose as a contender than there is for an outsider. There is more to be afraid of, terror that glories of the past are becoming distant and diminished and that in their place remain only victories by most hated foe.

Garcia's goal was nearly 4 years ago; it doesn't feel like 4 years. Eidur Gudjohnsen's volley is there every time I close my eyes. Sometimes when I'm panicking I lower my eyelids and it goes in. It has been difficult to forget about last year, too. I don't remember the goals Chelsea scored, more the bizarre dissonance I feel, the profound fireworks that fail to go off in my head, the non-event. And most of all the loathing, unsettling, pressing sensation that was there before the game, and which I won't be able to expel for at least a fortnight.

Fans of any team in any sport have to come to terms with this: our heroes are not permanent fixtures at the top of the game. They will get old, fat, lazy, drug-addicted or stupid and their reigns will end. One day they will be world-beaters, the next they will unleash a torrent of self-affirmations in the press as their form and fitness slump inevitably towards negligible. The special bond we forge through their effort and our half-hearted observation persists, of course. We turn a blind eye towards the flash haircut that has become a mullet, the washboard stomach that has given way to a paunch. We insist they are as potent as ever, because we still love them.

So must it be at Liverpool. Steve Finnan was for a number of seasons for me the most consistent, steady and hard-working fullback a fan could ask for, even if he wasn't the most attack-minded around. And Sami Hyypia, who I will always remember fondly; for 9 seasons (and counting) of nigh impeccable service; for being the unshakeable, ever-present foundation of a side; for cropping up for the odd jubilant, vital goal;  for manhandling the likes of Rivaldo, Drogba, Henry, Kaka and Totti as the Reds ambled through Europe on several memorable occasions. I struggle to believe he's ageing - he's still capable of hauling the defense manfully through dangerous waters.

All we request of our managers, coaches and chairmen is that they be treated with a modicum of respect on their way to the knacker's yard. In dropping Sami from the European squad, I don't believe Rafa has shown Sami the regard his service warrants, if not demands. As happy as I am to see eight home-grown players in the Liverpool squad, as confident as I am in Agger and Skrtel, and as inevitable as the decline of all great players is, Liverpool fans would be right in demanding that an icon such as Hyypia should be shown this respect.

FC Barcelona 1 - 2 Liverpool FC. Well, that could have gone worse. That said, our goals were *well* dodgy. Not so dodgy as the refereeing though.

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Dear Michel Platini,

I think it would be in the mutual benefit of the competition and most of the stronger all-round teams if it were made legal for possession of the football to pass from one team to the other without the referee indicating a free kick to barcelona.

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Here's hoping for the second leg.