Liverpool’s Champions League victory vs A.C Milan – 25th May 2005 – Istanbul.
This was a statement that I said to my five fellow supporters that were sat around the table that night in May.
This may seem to be one of those stories that retrospectively make you cool but actually never happened, well it did happen, and to this day I promise you I never, ever believed the words I was saying!
Cut to five minutes later and I was in the Gents, relieving myself of the copious amount of Budwieser I had been drinking, when a fellow Liverpool fan sidled up next to me, I then broke the first rule of the urinals....no talking, ever!
“If they can score three in one half then why can’t we?” I said still not believing it, “Not a fucking chance in hell!” came the reply, I agreed but still came back with “Well, you just never know”
I took my seat and waited to see by just how many goals Milan would win by, Rafa was making a substitution, Hamman on for Finnan...a defensive midfielder for a right back, hardly the attacking move needed to inspire 3 goals, how wrong was I?
Almost immediately it started to happen, first Gerrard scored with a brilliant header (he scores maybe one header per season so already that was a good sign) then Smicer (playing his last game for LFC) cracked a low shot from 20 yards into the bottom corner, and finally just 6 minutes after scoring the header, Gerrard was dragged down by Gattuso in the area...PENALTY!!
Alonso stepped up to take it, he looked pretty cool and I had no doubt at all that he wou....He missed!! But fortunately popped the rebound in to make it 3-3!
Suddenly I was looking like some sort of soothsayer with my bold “We can score three” statement!
The rest of the game passed and we moved to penalties, although I have to mention the unbelievable double save by Dudek from Shevchenko, a great header saved then a point blank follow up from 4 yards somehow put over the bar, Dudek’s reaction tell how much he knew about it!
NOW to penalties and at 3-2 to LFC, Shevchenko stepped up....and missed!
Cue the biggest celebrations I have ever witnessed, the chorus of “You’ll never walk alone” was deafening, everybody in the bar was cheering and shouting, somehow we had grabbed victory from the jaws of defeat and we were...European Champions!
I will remember that night for 3 reasons
1. We won the Champions League in possibly the greatest match ever played.
2. Our table racked up a bar bill of around £110 which we were never asked to pay.
3. 1 & 2 were so good, I don’t need a 3!
We won it five times, we won it five tiiiiiimes, In Istanbul, we won it five times!!!
Marcus Mitchell – October 2010.
