28/05/2006, 12:42 AM
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| زعيــم مميــز | | تاريخ التسجيل: 19/07/2001 المكان: عرب ستان
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مقال من الكاتب الليفربولي Gerry عن الذكرى الاولى للفوز بابطال اوربا للمره الخامسه .. (( الجزء الاول )) ..
The Miracle of Istanbul
(Part One)
Part One: The Rocky Road to Istanbul.
Doesn’t time fly? Its hard to believe that’s its been a full year this week since that magical night in the Ataturk stadium when we became Champions of Europe for a 5th time, in a game that has since become known as “The Miracle of Istanbul”. As my own small commemoration of the anniversary of that great evening I’ve been remembering the events leading up to the final and during the final itself and written them down in this two-part blog. It’s the first time I’ve ever done a two-parter but I hope it helps to bring back some of your memories of that glorious night when we became Champions of Europe for the FIFTH TIME.
We’ll get to the miracles of Istanbul in part 2 but firstly I think its worth remembering that there was more then a slight touch of the divine about the way we reached the final in the first place. After barely scrambling into 4th place in the league under Houllier in the previous season, we began our campaign with new manager Rafa Benitez in charge. Our pre-qualifying game saw us face GAK. It was a very scrappy tie and although they somehow managed to beat us 1-0 at Anfield, we won the tie with a 2-1 aggregate score and advanced to the group stage.
We were drawn in a group with Monaco, Deportivo and Olympiacos, which seemed a tough but manageable group and overall we were pretty happy with it and felt we had a reasonable chance of progressing. However, under Houllier we seemed to have become a team that were happy to scratch our way into 4th place in the league but Rafa had much loftier plans for us. In attempting to mould the side into his vision, he not only had to change the personnel in the team but also seemed to have to change the very mentality of the side. In the early days of this transformation (or Rafalution), as the team adapted to the new regime under Rafa, our form was perhaps understandably a little erratic at times. This was reflected not only in our league form but also in the Champions League and we found ourselves going into our final group game against Olympiacos at Anfield, needing to win by two clear goals, to progress to the next stage.
We started well and forced them on to the back foot almost from the kick-off, we forced corners, created chances and even had a Baros goal disallowed after 2 minutes. Everything seemed to be going according to plan but in the 25th minute Baros lost possession to Rivaldo on the edge of their box. The Brazilian then went on a brilliant half the length of the pitch run, with only a last ditch foul from Hyppia preventing him from going clean through on goal. However, our reprieve was short-lived and from the resultant freekick he finished of his good work and put them 1-0 in front. It was a real killer blow and as the half drew to a close the tough task of winning by 2 clear goals suddenly became mountainous as we now found ourselves having to score 3 goals in the second 45 minutes.
As usual, the fans did their best to lift the players and belted out a rousing rendition of “You’ll never walk alone” as the second half got under way. They had even more to cheer about when second half sub Pongo pulled it back to 1-1 just two minutes after the restart. We pressed forward after this in an attempt to get more goals but as chance after chance was missed, it seemed as if it just wasn’t going to be our day. However, second half sub Neil Mellor got us back on our feet again when he put us 2-1 in front in the 80th minute. The Greeks were rattled but the clock was ticking away as we poured forward seeking the third. You could almost feel it in the air and as the clock moved onto 86 minutes Gerrard unleashed a 30-yard screamer that whistled into the far corner of the net and the place went absolutely ballistic. A memorable game on a memorable night and a brilliant performance by the home fans as we marched into the last 16.
StevieG said in an interview after this game, that we didn’t really expect to go on and win the competition but we just wanted to hang in for as long as we could. He got a lot of stick from certain quarters for these “negative” comments but to be honest he was just echoing what we all felt at the time. That’s one of the strangest things about our Champions League victory, we Liverpool fans are an optimistic lot but none of us saw it coming. Looking back on it now, it seems that we had all turned into Bob Paisley’s and were only focused on one match at a time, never daring to look beyond the tie that was in front of us.
The draw for the next round saw us facing Bayer Leverkusen. A decent draw and a chance for some vengence against the side that had put us out of the competition a couple of seasons before. We expected it to be a close affair but it turned out to be a bit of a stroll. We won 3-1 at Anfield with goals from Garcia, Riise and Hamann and just to show that score was no fluke, we also beat them 3-1 at their place, this time Garcia got 2 and Baros got the third and suddenly we were in the quarters.
In the quarters things got a lot tougher when in an ironic twist we got Juventus in the draw, 20yrs on from the infamous Heysel stadium disaster. There was an emotionally charged atmosphere surrounding Anfield for the first leg. A minutes silence was impeccably observed before the kickoff in memory of the 39 fans that lost there lives that day 20yrs ago and the Kop showed a mosaic with the word "Amicizia", the Italian word for friendship. Most Juventus fans applauded the efforts of the Liverpool fans but some elected to turn their backs.
However, there was no friendship shown to their players on the pitch as Liverpool put in a superb high tempo display for the first 30 minutes and had Juve reeling. Hyppia put us in front on 10 minutes and Garcia hit a superb dipping volley from 25 yards to add a second in the 25th minute. There were more chances in the first half that Liverpool really should have took but the Italians regrouped in the second and pulled one back in the 63rd minute and that’s the way it stayed until the final whistle. Liverpool went to Turin holding a slender 2-1 lead and not many gave us a chance of hanging on to it but once again we proved people wrong and put on a superb defensive display to draw 0-0 and advance to the semi’s.
The semi’s brought us a mouth watering tie against many peoples favourites to win the competition, chelski. They had beaten us twice in the league and were miles ahead of us in the table and they had also perhaps a little fortunately beat us in the Carling cup final a couple of month’s earlier. To the neutral there could only be one outcome. However, Liverpool had other idea’s and put on another brilliant defensive display at the Bridge to draw 0-0. In the return leg at Anfield the atmosphere was absolutely electric and surpassed anything that had come before. Spurred on by the crowd Liverpool surged forward from the kick-off and took a controversial 4th minute lead.
A Gerrard pass allowed Baros to break clear but he was clobbered by Cech in the chelski goal and it seemed a certain penalty but the ball broke clear to Garcia who put it away and we found ourselves 1-0 in front. It is still argued by some, most particularly Jose MOANinho, whether this ball actually crossed the line but the linesman gave it and the referee claimed after the game that if it hadn’t been a goal, he would have sent Cech off and awarded a penalty but MOANinho continues to whine about it. Try as they might chelski couldn’t find a response and the Liverpool rearguard stood firm and held on to give us a 1-0 victory. The scenes of jubilation after the game were fantastic to behold.
I guess we were all still buzzing from this victory for a couple of days afterwards when it slowly started to sink in that we still had the Champions League final with AC Milan to come. We had all throughly enjoyed the twists and turns we encountered on the rocky road to Istanbul and we eagerly looked forward to the final. But nothing, absolutely nothing could possibly have prepared us for what happened next.
Next up: Part Two, The Agony and the Ecstasy |
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