Benitez, Mourinho in a battle of wits for final place

It is enthralling to have two English Premier League clubs facing each other for a place in the European Champions League final in Istanbul on May 25.

The first leg of the semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool will be played at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

Two fine coaches who dominated Europe last season, Jose Mourinho, winner of the Champions League with FC Porto and Rafael Benitez, who led Valencia to UEFA Cup glory, made the journey to the English Premiership - Mourinho joined Chelsea and Benitez succeeded Gerard Houllier at Liverpool.

The duo are now fighting it out to guide their teams to the final of the Champions League.

While Mourinho was 'in hiding' during Chelsea's remarkable victory over Bayern Munich due to the two-match ban imposed by UEFA for bringing the game into disrepute, Benitez was plotting the downfall of Juventus despite the odds being heavily stacked against the Reds.

Yet, Benitez showed what a great tactician he is as his players adapted to his plan to reach their first European Cup/Champions League semi-final in 20 years.

Benitez has given a proud football club reason to believe. Liverpool's performance in Turin, where Jamie Carragher and company seldom put a foot wrong, gave Michael Owen and Steven Gerrard time to ponder.

Owen left Liverpool in search of success but his present club Real Madrid were eliminated in the last eight by the same Juventus side, while Gerrard will perhaps change his mind and start to believe that he can win honours with his present club.

Chelsea are appearing in successive semi-finals after their defeat to Monaco last year.

When last season, Chelsea saw off Arsenal in the quarter-finals it was the first all-English clash in 25 years.

Now, only a year later, Chelsea will be involved again in another internal-continental combat, this time against Liverpool in the first ever last four clash between two English clubs in the most renowned European competition.

Chelsea's Frank Lampard has continued to underline his standing as one of the best midfielders in the world.

The latest plaudits were delivered by Owen who declared that he has never seen a player improve as much as Lampard has over the last three seasons.

Lampard remarked that Chelsea's exit from last season's semi-finals was one of his biggest disappointments and that he was determined to go one better this year.

Met three times

This season, Chelsea and Liverpool have met three times in domestic competition with Chelsea winning all three:

¤ October 3 (Premier): Chelsea-Liverpool 1-0 (J. Cole).

¤ January 1 (Premier): Liverpool-Chelsea 0-1 (J. Cole).

¤ February 27 (League Cup final, Cardiff): Chelsea-Liverpool 3-2 after extra-time (score after 90 minutes - 1-1): (Gerrard o.g., Drogba, Kezman - Riise, Nunez).

Liverpool will be keen to avenge these setbacks especially that of the final when they were winning and then were stopped in their stride by an unfortunate own goal by Gerrard.

The encounter will be the first meeting between Chelsea and Liverpool on the continent and the 10th clash between two English sides in European tournaments.

The data contained in the table below shows that both clubs' past clashes with English sides came in the semi-finals - bar the first round tie between Nottingham Forest and Liverpool in the 1979 European Cup. On that occasion, the Midlanders won 2-0 on aggregate.

Competition records

¤ Liverpool have competed in 15 tournaments in the European Cup/Champions League - won the trophy four times - with the following statistics: Played 111, Won 64, Drawn 24, Lost 23, Goals For 212, Against 92.

¤ Chelsea participated in three competitions, all in the Champions League, with these overall figures: Played 40, Won 22, Drawn 9, Lost 9, Goals For 67, Against 36.