The Wonder of Istanbul – View from the Lucky Hill (part 1)

25 May 2005, a miracle happened.

The greatest reality show that is football produced one of the most unbelievable shows of human strength. Mind over matter, nothing is impossible, it ain’t over until it’s over. Those clichés were proven right when Liverpool came back from 3 goals down at half time to beat AC Milan and win the Champions League, Liverpool’s 5th time as the king of Europe.

I wanted to write something about the incredible match since the final whistle, but being me, here I am writing about it three years later.

Now I’m not going to write a match report as I’m sure a lot of people are tired of reading about it. What I’m going to do is I will try to take you through the roller coaster of emotions that I went through watching it. The match was the most exhausting football I have ever watched and if I remembered correctly, I only get to truly enjoy the triumph days later. I was in a state of disbelieve for days!

On the way to the finale, Liverpool defied the odds by beating the more fancied team in Chelsea and Juventus. The matches against those two teams itself were legendary, and with the highest of high spirit Liverpool went to the finale knowing they had every chance of beating AC Milan, the 2nd most successful team behind Real Madrid in European football.

For me, I was just happy that Liverpool made it to the final. All I hoped for the final was that Liverpool will do themselves proud and not to be humiliated by a team of amazing players that was AC Milan.

AC Milan had Nesta, Cafu, Stam & the evergreen Maldini in their defence. Any of those four players would walk into any side in the world, so to have them together in a team was truly unbelievable.

In midfield they have Pirlo, Gattuso, Seedorf & of course the most coveted Kaka. Kaka is the main player, the playmaker of Zidane type. His brilliance clearly showed in the first half of the miracle game (more on that later).

Then there was the small matter of the two strikers, Crespo & Shevchenko, whose goal to game ratio were just amazing.

Clearly it was an uphill task for Liverpool.

As I said earlier I was just happy that Liverpool made it to the finale. But as the match got closer, the hope I have that Liverpool will win it got bigger and bigger. When the game started, I absolutely believed that Liverpool will be victorious!

So off we go. And off they go too. They scored as early as the fifth minute. And of all the players, it was Maldini that scored the goal. If I’m not mistaken, scoring that goal made him the oldest scorer in Champions League final history. Blerghh, he hardly ever scored before!

I didn’t realize it at that time, but the goal was the sign of things to come.

Surprisingly, I was ‘happy’ when they scored. The thing with Liverpool is, they have this tendency of playing too defensively and worrying too much about what the other team would do. So most of the time the team goes to the field trying to stop the opponent from playing, not to actually play their game. It can be really frustrating sometimes.

So when AC Milan scored early I thought it would be a blessing in disguise. I said to myself, “that’s ok. Conceding early is good for us. Now we have no choice but to go on the attack. Now we can show them what we are capable of.”

Boy, was I wrong!

We did go on the attack immediately, with Riise testing Dida with his trademark thunderous shot. Hyypia also went close to scoring, shooting just over if I remembered correctly. We definitely played well, but Milan were better. They dominated, and the main reason for that were Pirlo & Kaka. Most media in reporting the match seemed to forget about Pirlo. They were only talking about Kaka when in truth, Pirlo was the one who controlled the midfield.

However, they can be forgiven about that because Kaka was simply superb in the first half. He looked dangerous every time he got the ball. His vision, control, passing and movement were too much for Liverpool to handle. A true heir of the great Zidane.

Liverpool managed to hang on until five minutes before halftime. That was when Shevchenko turned provider for Crespo to score the 2nd goal. With that goal, all my hope of winning was gone. That goal was the lowest I felt in the entire game. Watching Milan dominating the first half hurts, but at least I still believed Liverpool can do something and win the game. But the 2nd goal destroyed everything, I practically threw the towel.

Five minutes later just before halftime, a moment of brilliance from Kaka seemed to end the match as a contest. He collected the ball just inside the centre circle, before turning expertly with skill & grace, and with that turn he left Gerrard for dead! Kaka then took a few steps forward, looked up and saw Crespo making a good run in front of him and instinctively threaded a beautiful measured to perfection pass for Crespo. Carragher who was marking Crespo tried to cut the pass by sliding desperately, but the pass was just too good. Crespo did the rest by coolly chipping the ball over the on-rushing Dudek.

The way Kaka mastermind the 3rd goal epitomized the match up to that point. You see, building up to the match, "Kaka-Gerrard Showdown" dominated the headline. Two of the world’s best player will go head on in the match that will decide the best team in Europe. In the first half of that match, clearly Kaka had the upper hand. By ghosting past Gerrard in that move, Kaka layed down the fact that he won the duel.

At that point I have already accepted the fact that Liverpool wasn’t going to win it and Milan had clearly been the better side. So despite being three goals down at the halftime, I wasn’t felling as disappointed as when they scored the 2nd goal. I remember thinking, “that’s ok boys. Just regroup at halftime, play the best that you can in the 2nd half and at least try to make the score line respectable.” That was all I’m hoping for. Just avoid humiliation.

Allegedly, this was said by Benitez in the dressing room during halftime. “Don't let your heads drop. Every player who goes onto the pitch in the 2nd half will have to hold his head up high. We are Liverpool. Never forget that, you have to hold your heads high for the SUPPORTERS....... You can't call yourself Liverpool players if you don't. If we come out and create chances we can get back into this.... Believe we can do this. Believe we can do it and we will... Give yourself the chance to be a hero!”

to be continued, stay tuned.......