I stepped out into the Ataturk Stadium, striding towards my destiny. This was it. I gripped the hand of the mascot. The Champions League anthem sent my heart racing even more. More handshakes, more formalities. I glanced towards the fans, looking for friendly faces, for reassurance before battle commenced with Milan. And then the huddle. Everyone gathered around, arms around each other, bonded together for death or glory. The noise from Liverpool fans was deafening, so I drew the players even tighter into the huddle so they could hear me. People like Carra understood how much this final meant to everyone at Liverpool. The years of waiting. The frustration at seeing other clubs dominating. I had to get this message across to the foreign lads. I’d been thinking about this speech all week, just getting the right words, and they all came flying out.
‘We are Liverpool,’ I told them, ‘and Liverpool belong in the European Cup final. Just look at our fans. Listen to them. Look at how much this means to them. It means the world. Don’t fucking well let them down. You don’t realize the reaction you will get from these fans if you win. You will be a hero for the rest of your life. This is our chance, our moment. Don’t let it slip. We have come this far, let’s not fucking give it up tonight. Let’s start well, get into them, show them we’re Liverpool. Lads, no regrets. Make every challenge count, every run count, every shot count, otherwise you will fucking regret it for the rest of your life. No regrets. Let’s win it.’
Enough words. Time for action. We broke away and sprinted to our starting positions.
So much for my gee-up. Milan were ready and waiting. We ran into a blizzard of white movement. Within a few seconds, Djimi Traore challenged Kaka. Djimi’s a bit leggy, he made a bad mistake, and down went Kaka. ‘Don’t give any stupid free-kicks away,’ Rafa had warned us, ‘because Milan are very good on set-pieces.’ We’d watched tapes, of course, and knew Andrea Pirlo’s delivery was second to none. Djimi’s error gave Milan the chance they needed: Pirlo to Maldini, slack marking, good volley, 1–0. Christ, what a shite start. I could have bollocked Djimi, but he realized his cock-up. ‘Get on with it,’ I shouted at Djimi. ‘We can deal with this.’
Gifted a goal, Milan then dominated. We were penned in, terrorized by Kaka’s breaks. This unbelievable Brazilian ran the show, finding spaces everywhere, firing in these killer balls. ‘Stay compact!’ I screamed. ‘Don’t let another in!’ This was the half from hell. Harry snapped his groin and hobbled off to the fans’ jeers, replaced by Vladi. Poor Harry. I’ve got to stand up for him. Liverpool fans didn’t realize he was injured. He was down, in pain, no chance of continuing. The fans genuinely believed Harry bailed out, so he got booed. That abuse wasn’t just for what happened in Istanbul; the anger had welled up over time. When Liverpool signed Harry, the fans were so happy, but he hadn’t produced very much. In the season after Istanbul, the fans started to appreciate how good Harry was. But at the Ataturk Stadium, their frustration with him spilled over. He got dog’s abuse, which was bang out of order.
One down, Harry gone, Liverpool were in the grip of a worsening nightmare. Nothing went right. Alessandro Nesta blatantly handled a shot from Garcia. ‘Handball!’ screamed Luis. ‘Handball!’ screamed the crowd. Penalties don’t come more obvious, but Manuel Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez, our refereeing friend from the Olympiakos game, ignored it. He waved play on. We were distracted, we struggled to get back, and Crespo tucked one away down the other end. ‘Keep calm!’ I yelled at the team. ‘Keep our shape!’
I looked at my team-mates. Stunned and dazed, we couldn’t get near Milan. Five minutes later, Kaka conjured up more magic and Crespo poached another. Three fucking nil. It’s over. Surely. That’s us dead. Never had I faced such a good side. Kaka was a great player, I knew that. Anyone who starts for Brazil must be special. But not until I spent that half running around after him, chasing his shadow, did I appreciate how quick he was in possession. Never in my career had I encountered anyone as fast with the ball at their feet. Kaka was lightning. I’m quite quick for a midfielder, and usually I reel in most players if they have the ball. Not Kaka. He was awesome, easily Milan’s best midfielder. I wasn’t worried about Gennaro Gattuso before the game, during the game or after. People rate the Italian for some reason. To me, he’s all mouth. He looks aggressive, but in fact he’s as scary as a kitten. I swear I wouldn’t mind playing against Gattuso every week. He doesn’t hurt you. I have never seen Gattuso play a killer ball. He won’t nick a goal, either. The type of midfielder I worry about is Juan Roman Riquelme, Kaka, or Ronaldinho. They go: through-pass – bang – goal. Gattuso just plays for the fans. Theatrical. Emotional. The Italian was also the one Milan player who had a smirk on his face leaving the pitch at half-time. I saw it. Fuck you. A couple of other Milan players waved at their fans and family. That disgusted me. So did Pirlo’s nutmeg just before half-time. Disrespectful. OK, Milan were battering us, but you never behave like that to opponents. Never.
I was steaming as I arrived in the dressing-room. ‘These cunts think it’s over,’ I said. ‘It’s not.’ All words then left me. I was speechless, enraged by our display, my own performance and that smirk of Gattuso’s. The dressing-room fell quiet for a couple of minutes. We sat there lifeless, our dreams seemingly shredded. Misery clung to everyone in that room. Harry sat there with an ice-pack on his groin. Christ, he was a mess – a lump the size of a tennis ball. Across the dressing-room, there was a controversy going on over Steve Finnan, whether he was injured or coming back on. ‘I want to stay on,’ Steve kept saying. The physio worked overtime on him.
Gradually, players began to speak. No recriminations. No blame. Just general laments. ‘Fucking hell, lads, what’s going on?’ I said. ‘Rafa told us to be compact, to not make mistakes. There is only one side in this. We haven’t even started.’ Some of the guys were in pieces. Surely there was no way we could score three goals against Milan, not after the way they played first half? ‘Let’s just stop this being 5–0,’ said Carra. ‘Let’s not have a massacre here.’
We needed someone to shake us into life, to make us believe. Rafa stepped forward. The boss was brilliant, truly brilliant, at half-time. ‘Silence,’ he said. All the murmurings and the moanings ceased. We looked up at our manager, wondering how he was going to change tactics to perform a miracle. ‘Finnan off, Didi on,’ Rafa said, rattling out orders. ‘Three at the back. Didi alongside Xabi, but more defensive. The two of you sort out Kaka. Vladi, play like a wing-back rather than right midfield. Steven, play a bit more forward. You and Luis link up with Baros. Pirlo’s not very mobile; get either side of him, and stop him playing. Get either side of Seedorf – he’s not very mobile. Get at their players. Close them down earlier. And keep the ball.’ Just listening to the boss’s escape plan lifted our spirits. Rafa was our leader, the man who could help us out of this mess.
Having sorted out the tactics, he went to work on our minds. ‘Don’t let your heads drop,’ he said. ‘You are playing for Liverpool. Don’t forget that. You have to hold your heads high for the supporters. You cannot call yourself a Liverpool player if you have your heads bowed. The supporters have come a long way. Don’t let them down. Believe you can do it and we will. Give yourselves a chance to be heroes.’
Rafa helped change our mood from defeat to defiance. Let’s go out fighting, not with a whimper. Rafa kept mentioning the fans. Outside, that huge electronic scoreboard that read ‘Maldini 1, Crespo 39, 44’ stared at our fans. Proof of Liverpool’s terrible performance was written large up there. Looking at that scoreboard, most Liverpool fans must have felt the race was run and lost. Deep down, the fans were simply buzzing we got to the final. They could see the quality of opposition we struggled against. Yet against all the odds, against all the evidence of Milan’s superiority, our fans were singing loud and proud. ‘Listen,’ I said to the players. ‘Listen to that.’ The singing of 40,000 Liverpool supporters floated down the tunnel, into the dressing-room and into our hearts.
Unbelievable. Liverpool were 3–0 down, being thrashed
by Kaka and Crespo, and our fans were singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. All the players looked at each other in amazement, and pride. ‘They bloody well haven’t given up on us,’ I shouted, ‘so we can’t give up either.’ By singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, the fans sent a message to eleven shattered men in the dressing-room: the fans will be with you, through the wind and the rain, through times of adversity like this. No matter how much the players hurt, we’d never walk alone. Our fans were with us. Together. Their message was to play for some respect, play for pride in the shirt. ‘The fans are with us,’ I said. ‘Let’s give them something to shout about. They’ve spent loads of money. They’re singing our name and we are getting stuffed 3–0. If we get one, they’ll get behind us even more. That will help put another one in for us. Come on, let’s fucking well have a go!’
As captain, the responsibility was on me to lead the fight-back. I came charging up the tunnel, staring at the Milan players as I raced past. I was determined to set a new tone: let’s get on with the game, we don’t believe it’s over. Milan’s players looked confused. They walked back out into a stadium where the only noise came from Liverpool fans. Even I was almost knocked over by the roar from our support. Milan’s fans were overawed. If the 2005 European Cup final had been a boxing match between the fans, the referee would have stepped in at half-time to prevent Milan’s followers suffering any further punishment. Confidence seeped back into me. My natural instinct is to fight back anyway. Battered about by my brothers’ mates on Ironside, rejected by Lilleshall, pained by injuries, I was used to hard knocks. I’d recovered before. Why couldn’t I recover now? Liverpool had forty-five minutes to get three goals. ‘Come on!’ I shouted at the team as the game restarted.
Immediately, we were reminded of the scale of the mountain we had to climb. Milan were pure class. Within a couple of seconds, Shevchenko bent in a free-kick that Jerzy fisted away – what I call a ‘camera save’, one for the telly. It was not a great free-kick, and if it had gone in we would have blamed Dudek. Any keeper would have saved that. He just made it look good for the cameras.
When the dust settled from that Milan chance, I took a look at their players. They seemed different. Complacency crept into their game. Milan felt the job was already done. Even if they lost one goal, Maldini and his mates clearly fancied themselves to see it through 3–1. Well, let’s just test that. I was getting forward more, released from my anchoring duties by Didi. His arrival was key. If Benitez had the chance to pick his Istanbul eleven again he would start Didi, who was brilliant second half. Milan caused us that many problems without a holding midfielder that Rafa now regrets not starting Hamann. I know how much he rated Didi back then. He gave him a new contract, and played him in big games. Didi has never let Rafa or Liverpool down, and he certainly didn’t when called on in Istanbul.
With Didi patrolling behind me, I ripped into Milan. It was time to sort the smirk out, time to take some risks. I bombed on, racing towards Milan’s area in the fifty-fourth minute as Riise got the ball on the left. ‘If he crosses now,’ I thought, ‘I’m in on goal. Come on, Ginger, fucking stick the ball in the box!’ Shit. Riise’s cross got blocked by Cafu. I checked, then went again. Just a gamble – the ball could come in again. Ginger delivered big-time, smacking the ball across before Cafu could close him down again. I was twelve yards out with a yard of space as Jaap Stam failed to react. Riise’s ball was travelling in fast. ‘Use its power,’ I told myself. ‘Direct it over Dida.’ Milan’s keeper put his arms out, but the ball was over him and in. Get in! Some header! A collector’s item as well: that was the only header I scored that season and the only header Liverpool scored in Europe that season. And all thanks to Didi and Ginger. I would never have been that far forward if Didi had still been among the onlookers. Credit to Rafa, too, for changing the tactics. The mood changed. I sprinted over to Liverpool’s fans and gave them a geeing-up sign. Come on! We have a chance! More noise. Fucking drown out Milan, lads. Liverpool fans lifted the players, and I wanted to lift the fans. They reacted as I knew they would. The volume rose.
Milan would surely react. Their team was packed with winners, stars like Kaka and Maldini. Before they caught their breath, we had to go for their jugular. Keep pushing. Two minutes on, Didi got the ball and slipped it to Vladi, who was twenty-five yards out and not looking threatening. Milan clearly did not consider him a danger: Seedorf hardly bothered to stretch out a leg to close Smicer down. When he first hit the shot, I thought Dida had to save this. It wasn’t that hard. But he flapped at Vladi’s strike, and the ball wandered on into the net.
‘Fuck me, we can do this!’ I thought. ‘Come on, let’s get the third!’ I yelled at the players once we’d finished congratulating Vladi. I was utterly convinced from that moment that Liverpool would not lose this European Cup final. No way. Milan had gone, their heads were down. No talking. No reaction. Milan were dead men walking. Let’s bury them.
Carra, unbeatable Carra, my mate and Liverpool’s magnificent servant, led another charge three minutes on, feeding the ball to Baros near the box. I was running in behind. I hoped to God Baros saw me. If he did, I was in on goal. ‘Milly!’ I shouted. ‘Milly, Milly, Milly!’ Baros heard me, heard my prayers, and found me with a spot-on touch. During his time at Liverpool, Baros was slated for being selfish, for being head down, for creating things for himself, but he showed unbelievable awareness that night in Istanbul. Anyway, my run was so special, how could Baros not see it! His pass came, I pulled my left leg back to shoot, and then bang, Gattuso caught my back leg. I went down. If I could have stayed on my feet, I would have stumbled on because I knew I would have netted. It was me versus Dida, and there would have been only one winner. I was desperate for a brace in the final. But Gattuso took my leg. ‘Penalty!’ everyone cried. I looked up to see Mejuto Gonzalez’s reaction. He was surrounded by complaining players: Milan players claiming I dived, which was bollocks, and Carra telling the ref that the foul was a sending-off offence.
My mind raced. Who did Rafa tell to take any pens? Think, think. It wasn’t me, I knew that. Luis tried to get the ball off Carra. Carra remembered Benitez picks a penalty-taker for each game; if that penalty-taker misses, Rafa takes the blame. That’s clever management. Xabi was the appointed one. Cool as you like, Xabi took control, collected the ball from Carra and placed it on the spot. Talk about pressure. ‘Put that ball in the net, please, Xabi,’ I prayed. Xabi hit it hard and low. I started leaping into the air to celebrate. Shit! Dida saved it. Well, that’s us fucked. Yet the ball was loose. Xabi reacted quickest. Always the top pro, the Spaniard followed up, and his finish was exquisite. He smashed it in, left foot. Get in! Take that, Dida! Take that, Milan! Where’s the smirk now?
God, I was relieved for Xabi. If Liverpool had returned home having lost 3–2 and having missed a penalty, that could have been a massive turning point in Xabi’s life. How would Liverpool’s fans have reacted? As a character, Xabi is strong, and he could have got over it, but I’m glad a good man and a great player didn’t need to find out. I wouldn’t want a missed penalty in a European Cup final on my CV.
Relief, joy, every emotion was there as we chased after Xabi. It was a piley-on, Xabi disappearing under shouting, laughing, uncontrollable team-mates. What a turnaround! Six minutes that shook the world. Six minutes that broke Milan’s hearts. Six minutes that wiped away the smirk. The suddenness of our comeback killed the Italian side. If the goals had been spread out, Milan might have got their heads together, regrouped and composed themselves. It was the sudden impact of the goals that devastated them. Me, then Vladi, then Xabi. Bang, bang, bang. Milan’s players looked like they had been in a car-crash. Staggering around. No direction.
Carlo Ancelotti tried to shake the corpse of his Milan side back into life. Seedorf was knackered, so on darted Serginho, who began flying down Milan’s left. Rafa reacted immediately. ‘Steven,’ he shouted. ‘Go right-back, Steven. You’ve got the legs to mark Serginho.’ Vladi had been righ
t wing-back, but Benitez didn’t think he was good enough defensively to handle Serginho. So I got the right-back shout. Thanks, Rafa! Serginho was lively and I was close to cramping up.
As Mejuto Gonzalez blew for the end of normal time, my body was a mess. ‘Fucking hell, ref,’ I thought, ‘give a decision on points, because I’m gone.’ Cramp invaded my calves. ‘Got nothing left,’ I gasped to one of Liverpool’s masseurs, who went to work on my legs. The Ataturk pitch was massive and the air really humid. I was drained. The thirty extra minutes stretched out in front of me like a life sentence. Moments like this are when a footballer discovers most about himself. I’ve dug deep once. Can I dig deep again? Have I anything left to give? Doubts briefly besieged me. I lay on my back, my socks rolled down, my shin-pads sticking out as the masseurs pummelled some life back into my legs. The cramp remained, eating away, but I could move and could definitely block the pain out. Thirty minutes remained. Give it all. And again. And again.
Extra time started and Serginho was coming at me again, all murderous intent and burning pace. What was he on? A bloody motorbike? I played from memory, somehow throwing myself into tackles on this bloody Brazilian. From Ironside to Istanbul, I have launched myself into tackles all my life. My body is programmed to do it. So when I was at my most exhausted, my energy gone, my brain closing down, my body followed its natural instinct and kept challenging. My long legs stretched out to get some big tackles in on Serginho. Everyone in red pushed themselves to the limits and beyond. Don’t let Milan score! Our so-called lightweight players, the flashy ones like Garcia and Vladi, battled like lions. Backs to the wall. Everyone fought. Bonds of friendship kept us together. Inevitably, Carra was a commanding presence, putting his body in the line of fire, getting blocks in, even with cramp gripping him too. An incredible desire to win consumes every fibre of Carra’s body. He’s a big leader for Liverpool, helping people, giving advice, often brilliant advice on football because he knows so much about it. Carra’s like having another captain behind me. We needed him in Istanbul big-time. He gave everything. At one point, I saw him pushing against the post, stretching his calves to take the sting out of the cramp. Carra remarked afterwards that playing with cramp was worse than playing with a broken leg. I sympathized. We were running on empty, just relying on guts and a refusal to be beaten.
Gerrard: My Autobiography Page 31