11:37 / 26.05.2005
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Vintage Liverpool produce epic response and triumph in Turkey
LIVERPOOL 3 MILAN 3
Liverpool win 3-2 on penalties
Sam Wallace in Istanbul
26 May 2005
In the great, tumultuous history of Liverpool Football Club this will take some explaining. How their team came from three goals behind to win a game so compelling and so engrossing against odds that appeared insurmountable is a story that those who were not present in Istanbul last night might find difficult to comprehend. All they need to know for now is that for a fifth, remarkable time Liverpool are the champions of Europe.
In 120 minutes, through a comeback from three goals behind and then nine penalty kicks, Rafael Benitez's team lost their sense of identity and belief before regaining it in the most thrilling terms imaginable.
They fought back against a Milan team who had eviscerated them in every area of the pitch in the first 45 minutes and then held their nerve in a penalty shoot-out that culminated with Jerzy Dudek flinging himself at Andrei Shevchenko's decisive spot-kick.
Dudek, the hero of the red Scouse nation. Dudek, the goalkeeper who even in the early stages of the second half looked uncertain in his handling. Last night Benitez transformed his modest band of brothers into men capable of an epic victory that seemed beyond them when they trudged in at half-time 3-0 down.
It was a night when you had to re-assess everything you believed Liverpool were capable of with every goal they scored. It was an occasion that called for one of Bill Shankly's great lines. And when Steven Gerrard lifted the trophy, the visceral roar from the red end of the stadium seemed to say that, yes, all this was more important than life and death.
In the middle of an ocean of emotion in the stands and on the pitch, Benitez kept his cool with the admirable poise that has characterised his whole debut season. And some debut season. Whether this team, who finished just fifth in the Premiership this season, stand comparison with the Liverpool sides who won this trophy four times between 1977 and 1984 did not seem to matter last night. They may not yet qualify to be the greatest Liverpool team of all time but they contributed the greatest performance this club has ever witnessed.
This was an occasion that stood comparison with Manchester United's victory in 1999 and, like that match, it provoked the same profound release of emotion. It will make legends of its central characters, not least Gerrard who raised that famous silver pot with a primal roar and then, on the pitch in the ecstatic aftermath, announced that he will stay at Anfield. There was also Jamie Carragher and Xabi Alonso whose Herculean efforts have given them a reward beyond their dreams.
It started with a gamble. A brave, unusual gamble by Benitez to select Harry Kewell in attack that backfired horribly and saw the Australian make a pitiful, limping exit on 23 minutes, booed off by his own fans.
The suspicion is that this strange, wasted talent lost his nerve but that is a story for another day because by then Liverpool were chasing a Milan team who had taken the lead on just 53 seconds through Paolo Maldini.
A devastating blow, delivered via Andrea Pirlo's free-kick from the right which Maldini volleyed into Dudek's net. Liverpool were simply overrun by an attacking combination of Kaka, Shevchenko and Hernan Crespo but mostly it was Kaka whose brilliant throughballs divided a demoralised, uncertain defence.
Shevchenko was a stud's width offside when he scored from one Kaka pass on 29 minutes and then 10 minutes later Milan added a second. The move had begun when Alessandro Nesta was acquitted of handling Luis Garcia's shot in the Milan area and from there Kaka broke upfield.
The Brazilian's pass was cut back from the right by Shevchenko and Crespo, off balance scored at the back post. A minute before half-time, Kaka's flick freed him from the attentions of Gerrard and, with one swipe of his boot, he sent a ball out of Carragher's reach that Crespo chipped past Dudek for Milan's third.
Utter desolation in their faces. Benitez brought on Dietmar Hamann for Steve Finnan at half-time but it seemed like a hopeful toe against the tide of Milan attacks. Already television zoomed in on tearful Liverpool fans and only 45 minutes had been played. Dudek dropped a shot, made one decent save and then suddenly we were confronted with six minutes that the red half of Merseyside will remember forever.
Gerrard headed John Arne Riise's cross in on 54 minutes for the first. Then two minutes later, Hamann teed up the substitute Vladimir Smicer for a low drive that beat Milan's goalkeeper Dida at his right post.
Gerrard gestured to his red army in the stands to rouse themselves and they did but not as much as those on the pitch. Before the hour the Liverpool captain was tripped by Gennaro Gattuso in the penalty area and, although Dida saved Alonso's penalty, he poked in the rebound.
Djimi Traoré kicked one off the line and Dudek made two stupendous stops from Shevchenko at the very death in extra time but Liverpool survived for the penalty shoot-out.
Serginho missed the first, and Pirlo and Shevchenko had their efforts saved while all but Riise scored for Liverpool. It was scarcely believable but a fifth title was theirs.
Should Uefa prevent Liverpool from defending it next season, it would be a denial of everything that is great and important about football. All of which we witnessed last night.
Liverpool (4-4-1-1): Dudek; Finnan (Hamann, h-t), Hyypia, Carragher, Traoré; Garcia, Alonso, Gerrard, Riise; Kewell (Smicer, 23); Baros (Cissé, 84). Substitutes not used: Carson (gk), Josemi, Nunez, Biscan.
Milan (4-3-1-2): Dida; Cafu, Nesta, Stam, Maldini; Gattuso (Rui Costa, 112), Pirlo, Seedorf (Serginho, 84); Kaka; Shevchenko, Crespo (Tomasson, 84). Substitutes not used: Abbiati (gk), Kaladze, Costacurta, Dhorasoo.
Referee: M Gonzalez (Spain).
Man for man marking
LIVERPOOL
JERZY DUDEK
Hesitant, nervy - just like the rest of defence. But also badly exposed. Great save from Shevchenko. 6/10
STEVE FINNAN
Had to do too much to simply retain possession. Lacked composure. 5
JAMIE CARRAGHER
Let down by the other defenders. Appeared frustrated but stood firm and brilliant tackle on Kaka. 7
SAMI HYYPIA
Disorientated by the speed and creativity around him. Tried to rally his team-mates. 6
DJIMI TRAORE
Out of his depth. Positionally naïve, tactically slow - but a great clearance off line. 5
LUIS GARCIA
At fault for first goal but tried to shoulder attacking burden and ran at defenders. 7
XABI ALONSO
Went missing at times but, with Hamann's arrival, was released and drove forward. Took his penalty well. 7
STEVEN GERRARD
Simply disappeared in first-half but what a transformation when his team needed him most in second half. 8
JON ARNE RIISE
Took the fight with energy and raw aggression when others wavered. 7
HARRY KEWELL
Gamble lasted 20 minutes but did little to justify selection in that time. Cameo summed up season. 5
MILAN BAROS
Willing runner but totally isolated by the first-half formation. But hard work gained reward. 6
SUBSTITUTES
VLADIMIR SMICER (for Kewell, 23)
Farewell appearance seemed to be petering away but goal transformed his game. 6.
DIETMAR HAMANN (for Finnan, h-t)
Quite why he did not start should haunt Benitez. Took hold off matters. 8.
DJIBRIL CISSE (for Baros, 84)
Not on long enough to make impact before 90min.
MILAN
DIDA
Slow to react and at fault for Smicer goal but unlucky with penalty. 6/10
CAFU
Trademark overlapping runs to the fore. Lived up to his nickname "pendolino" (the commuter). 7
JAAP STAM
Swatted off Liverpool's attacks with disdain until the goals rained in and he was bypassed. Close range header flash wide on 88 minutes, the last major incident of the 90min. 6
ALESSANDRO NESTA
Baros and Garcia caused moments of discomfort. Wasted possession at times. 7
PAOLO MALDINI
Goal set tone. Constantly willing to get forward. Great attacking threat. 7
ANDREA PIRLO
Allowed to run the first-half show as deep-lying midfielder cum quarter-back. But faded. 7
GENNARO GATTUSO
Industrious defensive work - but should have been dismissed for tug on Gerrard. 7
CLARENCE SEEDORF
Cruised at times when he rarely wasted a pass. But struggled when Liverpool raised pace. 7
KAKA
Superb. Sublime passing. Creative, threatening, world class in first half, almost uncontested. So why did Liverpool not mark him? 8
HERNAN CRESPO
Finished with confidence and aplomb for his two goals. Worked hard and justified the £16.8m Chelsea paid for him. 8
ANDREI SHEVCHENKO
Elusive, hard-working, set up Crespo selflessly for Milan's second goal but faded. 7
SUBSTITUTES
SERGINHO (for Seedorf, 84)
Not on field long enough to make impact before 90 minutes were up.
JON DAHL
TOMMASON (for Crespo, 84)
No on pitch long enough for telling impression before regular period was up.
High drama as Liverpool relive their European glory nights
By James Lawton in Istanbul
26 May 2005
It was always a story that had tugged at credibility and here in the furthest corner of Europe it took on new levels of fantasy.
Liverpool were dead, three goals down to the grandees of Europe - and then they were alive again.
The Ataturk stadium was caught in strange and stunning forces. Liverpool's initial collapse was to be avoided by the extraordinary feel for the tactics of the Champions' League displayed by Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez - and his uncanny knack of producing a different, and more resolute team in club football's most demanding arena.
But all of that belief engendered in the staggering assault on the high ground of the game couldn't be sustained against old and brilliant fighters who showed that their link with a great tradition still had life - vibrant, beautifully expressed life.
Milan were supposed to be weary, shot through by expectations and the tyranny of the passing years.
Liverpool believed they could exploit such time-expired grandeur. But they were caught in a myth and their fate was a terrible ambush. Or so it seemed until Steven Gerrard headed in a cross by John Arne Riise early in the second half. That meant Liverpool had merely a mountain to climb, and then it was hillock when Vladimir Smicer shot home. Two goals in three minutes was one of the great recoveries - and then Gerrard was hauled down in the box by Paolo Maldini, and Alsonso converted the penalty on the rebound.
Belief in the fate of this amazing game had to be in suspense.
For the last act of what he knew could be the greatest drama of his football life, Benitez made the most startling move of a brief but extraordinary reign at Anfield.
He brought Harry Kewell back from the football dead to play alongside Milan Baros, who was expected to give way to a renascent Djbril Cissé. Benitez was saying that if this was a stage - the most important match in Europe's football year - the Australian enigma scarcely deserved, it did provide the chance to redeem himself in the eyes of the public - a jury which some time ago judged him to be a killing example of misused talent.
However, if Benitez's initiative was a bold statement of ambition - and maybe acceptance that his only real chance was to put pressure on Milan's ageing defence - it was greeted with the equivalent of an old fashioned left hook inside a minute. It was delivered by the oldest champion on the field - 36-year-old legend Maldini. The strike, from a free-kick, was precisely the nightmare Benitez feared most.
It was the classic worst case scenario for any side hoping to hustle a team of Milan's defensive instincts out of their rhythm, and for a moment there was a terrible prospect for the 30,000 Liverpool fans who had been pouring into the city for three days. It was of seeing their heroes, the most improbable of finalists before the stunning upsets of Juventus and Chelsea, the champions of Italy and England, disintegrate before their eyes in the first heat of battle.
Though that didn't quite happen, there was a moment of huge deliverance soon after the Kewell experiment came to an early and, it has to be said, forlornly familiar end with him walking off the field holding his groin, to be replaced by Vladimir Smicer. Luis Garcia, who can move more quickly between glory and folly than any of his team-mates, with the possible exception of full back Djimi Traoré, who gave up the early, potentially fatal free kick, surrendered the ball to the swift and graceful Kaka and as the Brazilian flowed downfield, Liverpool faced a moment of crushing breakdown. Kaka's pass was slipped beyond Jerzy Dudek by the predatory Andrei Shevchenko, but the goal was ruled offside.
With Liverpool showing some considerable spirit, and Garcia claiming that Alessandro Nesta had handled the ball when the Spaniard moved to round him in the box, there was a sudden spurt of hope in the cavernous Ataturk Stadium. Maybe they had after all got a chance of getting into Milan's old bones.
It was an idea that died almost as soon as it was born. Hernan Crespo, injecting more irony into a single football match than any player for many seasons, destroyed the last of Liverpool's hopes with two goals of easy fluency. On loan from Chelsea, so impotent in front of goal in both the semi-final legs, Crespo was the man who had taken hold of this game which for Benitez's men suddenly presented only the challenge of avoiding a sustained and scarring embarrassment.
Liverpool's improbable glory was blowing like a piece of discarded sweetpaper along Scotland Road.
But then we had the avalanche of their recovery. It was staggering in its force and its origins - which was from the certainty of defeat.
Benitez's gamble on Kewell, which had gone so wrong was now replaced by the presence of the man many believe was crucial - Dietmar Hamann.
The arrival of the German international sent waves of authority through the midfield, helped trigger the passing game of Alonso and brought assistance to a previously stretched defence. Jamie Carragher was the hero again and so was Traoré when he cleared on the line.
As the game went to extra time Liverpool had healed the wounds and it meant that whatever happened, their incredible story had been saved from a humiliating ending
Lecherous locals were more interested in the shortness of her shorts, but for the Liverpool lass heading to last night's game the most important part of her attire was the bright red shirt emblazoned "GERRARD'"
A much admired smile hid any nagging concern about her hero's future, which can only have intensified as his value to the team was illustrated once more on this extraordinary night.
There are five days until Steven Gerrard's 25th birthday, the kind of milestone at which men tend to pause for reflection on which direction their life is taking. Should he stay or should he go? Stevie G was in a jam pondering that question a year ago, and is believed to have had his bags packed, metaphorically, before some deeply unpleasant mail prompted a very late change of heart.
"We were with his dad in Portugal last summer and he was that close to joining Chelsea," a self-styled family friend from Huyton insisted outside the stadium. "The letters had an effect, and they came from his own people, Huyton people. So this time the decision'll be kept dead quiet. Only him and his dad know."
The word on Merseyside was that victory might sway the Liverpool captain, convincing him that as European champions the club would have proved they could make the strides he demanded in previous talks with senior management, whether or not Uefa would permit the holders to defend their trophy next season.
Now that tortuous argument will be renewed, with Lennart Johansson and his cohorts surely having to give in to what will become ever increasing pressure.
If last night's final was, indeed, a finale, it will have to be seen as justifying the decision to move on. Suitors - including Milan - could only have admired the defiant determination shown by Gerrard and matched by those supporters chanting at half-time "we're gonna win four-three". It was hard not to feel sorry for him as he attempted to rally the troops by word and deed in a tactical system flawed from the outset that left him without the reassuringly solid protective barrier that Dietmar Hamann would have erected in front of the back four. Instead Gerrard and Xabi Alonso found themselves by-passed by the wonderfully deft inter-passing of Clarence Seedorf and Kaka.
But in the second half something closer to the line-up Rafael Benitez should have fielded from the start, with Hamann holding the fort, allowed Gerrard to be his proper rampaging self. From the first minute after the resumption, he was the one chasing loose balls and what seemed at that stage lost causes; waving his arms in encouragement at the supporters after heading in John Arne Riise's cross; leading the chase to acclaim Vladimir Smicer after the second goal and earning the equaliser with his run into the penalty area to draw a foul. Xabi Alonso promptly converted the penalty to give the Reds a scent of the trophy that had seemed all but lost. The rest, as they say is now history, with this final surely taking its place as one of the three greatest European finals ever.
A bitter wind was blowing as the Mersey faithful filed away from the Ataturk Stadium, a folly in an oasis populated mainly by goats, and surely the oddest venue for any of the 50 finals since Milan entered the original competition in 1955.
The lady in the shorts must have been feeling complete elation, all thoughts of her hero's future taking a back seat to the full night of celebrations ahead.
Five minutes that shook Milan: Liverpool's great comeback
54 MIN
Jon Arne Riise swings a cross in from the left where an unmarked Steven Gerrard rises to flick a looping header past Dida into the Milan goal.
56 MIN
Liverpool work the ball across the edge of the Milan area from left to right, Dietmar Hamann rolling it to Vladimir Smicer whose drive finds the bottom left corner.
59 MIN
Smicer flicks the ball into the area for a breaking Gerrard who is nudged by Gennaro Gattuso. Xabi Alonso's resulting penalty is saved by Dida, but the Spaniard follows up to lift the ball into the net.
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