Porto 1 - 1 Liverpool

19 min: Liverpool are beginning to knock it around a bit. Babel, Gerrard and Kuyt combine well down the left side, where the booked Bosingwa seems afraid to make a tackle.

17 min: Redemption for Steve Finnan and your beleaguered minute-by-minute correspondent! Porto 1 - 1 Liverpool. What a great free kick from Finnan, out wide on the right. He swings the ball in towards Hyypia on the left - the big Finn heads back across the six-yard box towards Kuyt, who crashes a header home past Nuno. It'll be interesting to see how Porto respond to this, because that's truly against the run of play. Hopefully Patrick Noctor no longer wants to kill me with a claymore.

15 min: Finnan gives the ball away for the 475th time this match.

14 min: Patrick Noctor writes: "You've put the equivalent of a Scottish voodoo on Liverpool." Oh Patrick! Will you believe me when I tell you I'm really sorry?

Seven minutes ago: Patrick Noctor writes: "Criticizing the only manager to have led a British team to TWO, yes TWO European Cup finals in the last decade is a bit much. Put your book on Culloden down and check your statistics - Benítez changed his side last season as much as your overrated native hero Ferguson."

12 min: Liverpool have calmed Porto down a bit, but they can't do much with the ball themselves. Babel and Mascherano both attempt raking forward passes but neither come off and soon enough the home side are coming back at them. "In that rather frantic hurry to show you are abreast with current affairs," writes Cassie Bradshaw, who's got my number alright, "you forgot to name Alberto Gonzales, Microsoft, Blackwater and the Senator whose wide stance got him into trouble at the Minneapolis airport." Alberto who? Micro what?

9 min: Bosingwa is booked for a hefty challenge on, and through, Babel out on the left. Ray Kelly writes in re the picture on this report: "Don't tell me Graham Poll is tonight's ref?" I've not mentioned that, have I. The man with the whistle is Lubos Michel.

8 min: GOAL! Porto 1 - 0 Liverpool. This has been coming. Lucho Gonzalez hammers it down the centre, giving Reina no hope.

7 min: PENALTY TO PORTO! Sektioui nips ahead of Hyypia and is bundled over by the advancing Reina. That's the fourth penalty Liverpool have conceded this season already, and oh dear.

5 min: LIVERPOOL TOUCH THE BALL! They have touched it! They really have! Torres picks it up on the left and turns Bosingwa well, but loses control in an attempt to power away from his opponent and the 0.0034sec period of possession is over.

4 min: This is a pretty bloody awful start by Liverpool, this. Now Quaresma gets the ball in the left-hand side of the Liverpool box and unleashes a superb shot from a tight angle. It's over the bar and Reina looked to have it covered, but still.

And we're off! Porto win a corner after 40 seconds after some good work down the right from Meireles and Quaresma. And from it, a long, deep cross forces Arbeloa to concede another. From the second one, Finnan finds his clearance charged down, and Lopez suddenly finds himself one on one with Reina, six yards out! The keeper does brilliantly well to race out and deflect the ball away with his face. Not a good start by Liverpool, that.

Signs that tonight may be enjoyable: ITV1 went to adverts, so I didn't have to listen to that pompous Champions League dirge.

Thank you, my Guardian Unlimited Football! "Just as a matter of interest," asks Vaughan Michael, "why does the live scores link from the front page of the site lead to scores from 2003?" No idea, Vaughan, I'm simple folk. But can I just take this opportunity to congratulate Nick Barmby and Mark Viduka for securing a late 3-1win for Leeds at home to Villa.

Preamble: Preambles are so season 2006/07.

They've won four on the spin, this lot, and haven't lost at home to English opposition in nine: Nuno, Bruno Alves, Paulo Assuncao, Quaresma, Lucho Gonzalez, Lopez, Bosingwa, Fucile, Joao Paulo, Raul Meireles, Sektioui.
Subs: Ventura, Stepanov, Cech, Mariano Gonzalez, Bolatti, Farias, Kazmierczak.

Liverpool team (aka Rafa's Insistence That He's Prioritising The Premier League Is A Load Of Balls Isn't It dept.): That team against Portsmouth was a complete dog's dinner, but this is better, despite the training-ground loss of Xabi Alonso: Reina, Finnan, Hyypia, Arbeloa, Carragher, Pennant, Mascherano, Babel, Gerrard, Torres, Kuyt.
Subs: Itandje, Agger, Voronin, Benayoun, Aurelio, Crouch, Lucas.

Folk who want to get their game faces on quick smart: Ming Campbell, Britney Spears, Paul Collingwood, Condoleezza Rice, Owen Wilson, Brian Ashton, Andy Kershaw, whichever clown is running Northern Rock, 50 Cent, the woman behind the desk at the cab firm over the road from my flat who keeps saying my car is "three minutes away" when it's clearly somewhere over the other side of town and heading in the opposite direction, Rafa Benitez and his Amazing Selection Policy.