Six minutes of madness that turned final into a classic

Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti called them "six minutes of madness" and they transformed the 2005 Champions League final into one of the greatest matches in football history.

Two years ago this week, on May 25, 2005 at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul, Milan met Liverpool in a match that has no equal in European club football's half-century of drama.

Milan struck first with less than a minute played when skipper and defender Paolo Maldini, playing in his seventh final, found himself in space after Liverpool failed to clear and lashed the ball home for his first goal of the season.

Milan then tore Liverpool apart in a one-sided first half in which Kaka was awesome. They played with mesmeric pace, controlled passing and their movement on and off the ball left Liverpool in tatters.

Hernan Crespo, on loan at the time from Chelsea, seemed to wrap the match up with two goals in a five-minute spell just before half-time to give Milan a seemingly unassailable 3-0 lead.

Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher, who said he has watched the replay of the match many times since, recalled last week how he felt at half-time.

"People always ask me what happened during the interval and want to hear me say we were like lunatics believing we were going to win," he said.

"But the way they were playing I was fearing it was going to be 5-0 or 6-0. And at the start of the second half Milan looked like they were going to score again.

"But we turned it around. I'm only just starting to realise what an achievement it was. It was probably as good a game as there has ever been."

What did happen at half-time was that Liverpool coach Rafael Benitez reshaped his defence and brought on Dietmar Hamann to mark Kaka. The balance of power had shifted.

The fightback started in the 54th minute when Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard headed wide and high over Milan goalkeeper Dida to make it 3-1.

Two minutes later substitute Vladimir Smicer scored with a speculative 20-metre shot and it was 2-3. Four minutes after that "the madness" was completed when Xabi Alonso scored from the rebound after Dida had saved his penalty.

It was 3-3 with half an hour to play. Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek then performed a heroic double-reflex save from Andriy Shevchenko two minutes from the end of extra time to ensure a penalty shoot-out.

Liverpool took control of the shoot-out when Serginho and Andrea Pirlo failed with Milan's first two penalties.

Hamann, Djibril Cisse and Smicer scored for Liverpool and Shevchenko's weak effort was comfortably saved by Dudek to seal the English side's unlikely triumph.

Ancelotti later said his team lost the match because of the "six minutes of madness" after half-time.

Tomorrow's sequel in Athens is unlikely to be quite as spectacular - but after what happened in Istanbul two years ago, it would take a brave man to say nothing like it could ever happen again.

Champions League Facts

• Athens is staging the final of Europe's premier club competition for the third time following the finals of 1983 and 1994.

• Both of those finals also featured an Italian club with Hamburg defeating Juve 1-0 in 1983 and Milan beating Barcelona 4-0 13 years ago.

• Milan have already played a Champions League match in Athens this season, losing a group stage match 1-0 to AEK on Nov. 21 last year.

• This is the 52nd final since the competition began as the European Cup in 1955-56, with Milan making their 11th appearance and attempting to win the trophy for the seventh time.

• Liverpool are making their seventh appearance in the final, having won the trophy in 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984 and 2005. They lost in 1985.

• It will be Liverpool's fourth successive European Cup final against Italian opposition after facing Roma in 1984, Juventus in 1985 and Milan in 2005.

• If he plays, Paolo Maldini will become the oldest outfield player to appear in a European Cup final at the age of 38 years 331 days. The oldest player to appear was Juventus keeper Dino Zoff, aged 41 years 86 days in 1983.

• Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti is one of only five men to win the European Cup as both a player and a coach. He was in Milan's winning sides of 1989 and 1990 and was coach when they beat Juve on penalties in 2003.

• Ancelotti and his Liverpool counterpart Rafael Benitez are attempting to become the 14th men to win two European Cups as coach. Only Liverpool's Bob Paisley has won three.

• Although Real Madrid have appeared in 12 European Cup finals and won a record nine times, Milan have reached more finals since the Champions League era began in 1992-93. This is their sixth final since the Champions League was introduced and they are attempting to win it for the third time, the same as Madrid in the same period.