The imposing Atatürk Olympic Stadium was not the most conventional setting for a miracle. Commissioned in aid of Turkey’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games, the venue had long seemed destined never to fulfill its potential. But on a scorching Istanbul night on May 25, 2005, the ground played host to one of the most memorable matches the sport has seen as Liverpool mounted an inconceivable comeback in the UEFA Champions League final against AC Milan.
Before a ball was even kicked at the Atatürk, it was a contest Liverpool had no right to win. Rafael Benitez’s side was, on paper, no match for Carlo Ancelotti’s squad of superstars. Milan had won the Champions League just two years earlier, while Liverpool hadn’t even made it to the final since 1984. Milan had lifted the Serie A title in 2004; Liverpool hadn’t been domestic champions since 1990.
When veteran captain Paolo Maldini volleyed home the opener after a minute, and Hernan Crespo then scored a quick brace to put Milan 3-0 up before the break, it looked for all the world that the trophy would be heading to the San Siro.
The series of events that followed would defy all reason and logic, but somehow, it was Liverpool who ended the night as European champions, with captain Steven Gerrard hoisting the cup in front of more than 20,000 traveling fans.
Twenty years on, ESPN has spoken to Benitez, Liverpool winger Luis Garcia (now an ESPN pundit) and fans who made the 1,700-mile journey to Turkey to tell the story of the day, which will be forever known as “The Miracle of Istanbul.”
Getting to the game ‘any way we could’
“We were the underdogs,” said Garcia, who played the entire energy-sapping 120 minutes for Liverpool. “No one at the beginning of the season thought Liverpool were getting to the final. We made a fantastic connection in the dressing room.
“We found a way of going again and again in every single knockout game. We managed to knock out Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus and Chelsea and then found ourselves facing one of the greatest AC Milan teams in history.”
While Liverpool had toppled several strong teams (namely Juventus and Chelsea) on the road to Istanbul, AC Milan were a different proposition entirely. The Italian side had a squad packed with star-studded names. When the inaugural FIFPRO World XI was named in 2005, five Milan players made the cut, more than any other club. Their attack was fronted by 2004 Ballon d’Or winner Andriy Shevchenko, while their back line featured legendary names such as Cafu, Maldini and Alessandro Nesta.
0:51
Luis Garcia has no doubts that he won the best Champions League final ever
Former Liverpool player Luis Garcia says their famous win in Istanbul is the greatest Champions League final of all time.
Garcia, who had joined Liverpool from Barcelona the previous summer, had scored some crucial goals for the Reds on their road to the final — including, memorably, his “ghost goal” against Chelsea in the semifinal. But, while the Spain international had helped Liverpool book their place in a first European Cup final in 21 years, many supporters felt the luster of Milan might prove too much for Benitez’s men.
“It’d been an incredible journey just for Liverpool to get to the final,” John Gibbons, who traveled with his sister to watch the game, told ESPN. “I felt like every step was going to be a step too far for that team because it was still developing. [Liverpool] had some really good players, but a few that probably weren’t of the normal quality, let’s say, to be in a Champions League final.
“Just to get to the final felt like an incredible achievement for this team, and we were determined to enjoy it.”
One fan who was determined to soak up every moment of Liverpool’s European odyssey was Kevin Walsh, who had to take three separate flights and two coach journeys to make it to Istanbul.
“When we actually got to the final, it was a case of getting there in any way we could,” he told ESPN. “It ended up taking us 24 hours, but it was worth every second of it.
“When we arrived in Istanbul and got a taxi from the airport, it was a moment I’ll never forget. It was dark and the excitement was just incredible. I’d experienced cup finals before as a Liverpool fan, but this just felt different. It felt special.”
For a generation of Liverpool supporters, this was their first experience of life at Europe’s top table. Having spent decades being regaled with stories of their team’s previous triumphs in Rome, London and Paris, fans seized the chance to turn Istanbul red, with tens of thousands gathering in the city’s Taksim Square in the buildup to the game.
“I remember when we arrived someone telling me the last thing the city needed was an extra 60,000 people, and that’s how it felt,” Gibbons said. “It was the busiest place I’d ever been at that time. We got to Taksim Square and it was just a sea of red.
“The sun was shining and loads of people had their tops off, including a few fellas who probably shouldn’t have. You could see the sunburn kicking in already, matching the red shirts.”
John Gibbons
“The sun was shining and loads of people had their tops off, including a few fellas who probably shouldn’t have. You could see the sunburn kicking in already, matching the red shirts. But it was just a great feeling. It just really felt like it was our time.”
That feeling only intensified when supporters began making the pilgrimage to the Atatürk. Located nearly 30 kilometers from the city center, the journey to the stadium took many fans hours, though that did little to dampen the spirits.
“Traveling to the stadium, everywhere you looked, there was red,” Gibbons said. “By the time you were about a mile from the stadium, it was just gridlocked, and so people were just getting out, their taxis abandoned, and walking across what felt like a desert to get there.
“Everyone just looked like ants going across this kind of dusty field leading up to the big, bright lights of the stadium. It was a crazy stadium. It looked great, but there were no facilities or anything.
“I remember being a bit thirsty and thinking: ‘I can’t have any more beer; I want to remember the game.’ I tried to get some water, but they’d ran out of everything. I said: ‘Have you got anything?’ And they tried to sell me yogurt, which was the last thing I wanted!”
In spite of the Atatürk’s deficiencies, the feeling of many Liverpool fans in the buildup to kickoff was one of giddy disbelief as the stadium quickly became a blur of red scarves and flags.
“Going into the ground you’re like: ‘Oh my god, I’m at a European Cup final,'” Walsh said. “And at that stage, European Cup finals were things that my dad had told me about from the 1970s and 1980s, and I didn’t think I was ever going to get to one if I’m being totally honest.
“So, to be walking into the ground as a Liverpool fan with my best mates, knowing that we were going to watch Liverpool potentially win the European Cup was an unbelievable experience.”
First-half horror
If Liverpool fans were on cloud nine before kickoff, it took only 50 seconds of match action for them to be brought firmly back down to earth, with Milan captain Maldini volleying in the opener from an Andrea Pirlo free kick.
“You’ve been working for nine months to get ready for a game like this one,” Garcia told ESPN. “You’ve probably been dreaming about it your whole life. And so, to get a slap in the face one minute into the game was a massive blow to all of us.”
That sense of despondency was shared in the stands, where the atmosphere had quickly turned from ecstasy to extreme disappointment.
“It felt like all your dreams; being there and seeing the players coming out and looking fantastic in their red tracksuits,” Gibbons said. “But then Milan scored straight away and it’s almost like you suddenly sobered up. Then it hits you and you remember that it might be a fantastic occasion, but the other team want to win as well. And they’ve got better players; they’ve got superstars from one to 11.
“It was a real reality check, that first goal, and I think we realized then that we were in for a very tough night.”
“You’ve probably been dreaming about it your whole life. And so, to get a slap in the face one minute into the game was a massive blow to all of us.”
Luis Garcia
It didn’t take long for things to get tougher for Liverpool. After being denied what had looked like a clear penalty for a handball by Nesta, the Reds found themselves further behind when Crespo turned the ball home from Shevchenko’s pass on 39 minutes.
Crespo then compounded Liverpool’s misery with his chipped finish over goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek on the stroke of halftime to make it 3-0, with many inside the stadium convinced it was already “game over.”
“I’ll be honest, if there had been a pub within an achievable distance of getting to from the stadium, I think I would’ve spat my dummy out and I’d have probably left the ground,” Walsh said.
“You had people like me who were angry. I didn’t want to speak to anybody. I didn’t want anyone telling me it was going to be all right. A lot of people were saying: ‘Just relax, it’ll be fine. We can come back into this.’ I was just saying to them: ‘What are you talking about? There’s just absolutely no chance.'”
Gibbons agreed: “It felt like game over. I remember going to find my friends, hoping it would cheer me up, but they were worse than me! They just looked like they’d had all of the stuffing knocked out of them. It felt like we were kids on Christmas Day, coming down in the morning all excited and realizing there were no presents. That’s how it felt.”
“[All the players] had their heads down,” coach Rafa Benitez told ESPN of the atmosphere in the changing room at halftime. “Normally you have one or two minutes that everybody’s talking. They were not talking too much.”
“It felt like we were kids on Christmas Day, coming down in the morning all excited and realizing there were no presents. That’s how it felt.”
John Gibbons
From despair to where?
With all hope seemingly lost, the Liverpool supporters took it upon themselves to send a message of solidarity to their players as they came back out, launching into an emotional rendition of the club’s anthem: “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
“When people started to sing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone,’ which went on to become a very iconic moment, I actually said: ‘Oh, it’s not the answer to everything!'” Walsh said.
“But then as it built, I obviously got swept up by it myself. It wasn’t a show of support, it was more of a show of defiance like: ‘We’re Liverpool Football Club and it’s not gone our way today, but we’re still Liverpool Football Club.'”
1:28
How Liverpool fans’ defiant ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ powered 2005 comeback
Fans, pundits and players at the 2005 Champions League final remember what it was like to hear Liverpool’s defiant rendition of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ at halftime in Istanbul.
Whether the song was intended as a rallying cry or not, its impact was quickly felt by the players.
Garcia said: “We had to try to score that first goal to give us hope to get back into the game, but the most important thing when we arrived for the second half was hearing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ from the supporters. We felt like we’d started the game again. The intensity of the songs, even when we felt we couldn’t do anything else, they continued singing and you could feel something was happening.”
“We have to score a goal, that was the message [at halftime],” Benitez says. “If we score a goal, we’ll be back into the game. And we didn’t. We scored three goals in a few minutes.”
Rafa Benitez
“I wanted to be clear with the message,” Benitez said of his team talk. “I had to keep giving belief and hope to my players.
“That was the main thing what I said at halftime. It was ‘We have 45 minutes to change this.’ We have nothing to lose because we were already losing.
“And the fans singing at halftime when we were losing. I think it’s something that you haven’t seen for any other team or in any other final.”
Benitez added: “You try to pass the right message, as a leader. You have to be sure that they believe in you, they believe in what you are saying.
“Our plan was to change to three at the back, giving us more control in the middle with Didi Hamman and Alonso. So to have this control in the middle, where they were stronger and they were better than us in the first half. And we did it, and we did it well.
“And with the players, they see that you are calm and you have a plan. At least they try to follow the plan.”
Nine minutes into the second half, captain Gerrard gave the fans a glimmer of hope when he rose to divert John Arne Riise’s cross past Dida in the Milan goal. But it was in the 56th minute, when Vladimir Smicer’s strike from distance rippled the back of the net, that fans really started to believe.
“I think everybody in the ground and everyone in the world watching on television was thinking: ‘Smicer, don’t you dare shoot from there!’ But when it hit the back of the net, my whole demeanor just changed,” Walsh said.
“Our end just erupted, and you could smell blood at that moment. It sounds twee sometimes when you talk about Liverpool, but as fans, I don’t want to say we see ourselves as special, but we see ourselves as different. And in that moment, you just have the collective feeling of: ‘Oh my god, if there’s any team in the world that could actually do this, it’s us. And it might be on.'”
“I’ve been in some unbelievable ends for Liverpool finals. I’ve celebrated some massive goals with some crazy celebrations, but you would have to go a long, long way to beat that feeling.”
Kevin Walsh
Four minutes later, the comeback was complete courtesy of midfielder Xabi Alonso, who scored the rebound to make it 3-3 after his penalty — awarded for a foul on Gerrard by Gennaro Gattuso — was initially saved by Dida.
“Xabi’s awareness and focus was fantastic,” Garcia said. “He reacted so quickly and managed to put the ball into the net. As you can imagine, the thought for ourselves was to run and celebrate and to release all that tension and pressure that we felt during the game.”
Walsh agreed: “That moment was pandemonium. I’ve been in some unbelievable ends for Liverpool finals. I’ve celebrated some massive goals with some crazy celebrations, but you would have to go a long, long way to beat that feeling.”
“We have to score a goal, that was the message [at halftime],” Benitez said. “If we score a goal, we’ll be back into the game. And we didn’t. We scored three goals in a few minutes, so that was even better. The main thing was to score the first goal to have the players believing that they could change the game.”
Dudek’s extra-time feats
Though Liverpool had been in the ascendancy, it was Milan who had the better chances after Alonso’s equalizer, with interventions from defenders Djimi Traore and Jamie Carragher forcing the game into extra time.
“I remember feeling exhausted because it’d been such a long day,” Gibbons said. “We’d been on the very first flight out of [Liverpool] John Lennon Airport. We were probably up at five o’clock in the morning and then we’d been drinking all day in the sunshine and probably not having enough to eat.
“And then you’re watching that game and you’re going through the wringer; kicking every ball and feeling all the range of emotions. And so, by the time we got to extra time I remember just thinking: ‘I’m so tired.’ It was almost surreal, and we were all trying to piece together what we’d just seen because I’d never really seen anything like it.
“You just hoped there was one more twist in the tale and they could get some energy from somewhere and go on to win it.”
1:05
How Derek Rae called the moment Liverpool won the 2005 Champions League
Derek Rae, ESPN’s lead commentator for the 2005 Champions League final, remembers his call of Jerzy Dudek’s match-winning penalty save.
Both teams had chances to snatch the victory, but it was Liverpool goalkeeper Dudek who delivered the defining moment of the additional 30 minutes with his inexplicable double save to deny Shevchenko from close range in the 117th minute.
“I’ve had the opportunity to talk with Jerzy many times about that save, and I always ask him: ‘How did you manage it?'” Garcia said. “Not even he knows how he managed to do it. The first [save] of course was fantastic, but the second one was a miracle, and we needed a miracle to win that game.”
Among the fans, too, Dudek’s save helped to instill further belief that it might well just be Liverpool’s night.
“The first [save] of course was fantastic, but the second one was a miracle, and we needed a miracle to win that game.”
Luis Garcia
“That is one of the moments that I’ll never forget as a Liverpool fan,” Walsh said. “I play in goal myself. I have done since I was a kid, and when Shevchenko strikes that, you think it’s a goal.
“He’s the best striker in the world. Three yards out and it’s guaranteed to be a goal. But then Dudek makes the first save and he somehow just sticks his hand out and the second goes over the bar. I’m not one for saying our name is on the cup, but at that moment there was only one team that was going to win it.”
‘You couldn’t write this story’
Having already made himself the standout, Dudek further enhanced his legendary status at Anfield with a memorable performance in the penalty shootout, deploying a host of distraction tactics, including mimicking Bruce Grobbelaar’s “spaghetti legs” from the 1984 European Cup final against AS Roma in Rome.
Dudek’s antics had the desired effect, with Brazil international Serginho ballooning his effort over the bar, before saves from Pirlo and Shevchenko ensured the European Cup would be returning to Liverpool, the shootout score ending 3-2 to the Premier League team.
“The Milan players looked like they were walking to the guillotine because they had everything to lose,” Gibbons said. “And so as soon as Serginho misses, I’m like: ‘We’ve won it. We’ve won it here.’
“They looked done, and we looked so confident. When Shevchenko missed, I almost had to do a double take really because I hadn’t prepared for it at all.
“I just remember disbelief and then sinking to my knees and having every last bit of energy go out of me. I remember my sister giving me a hug and it was just incredible scenes and an amazing feeling to think our team had made history.”
Walsh added: “It was wild. Everyone was hugging and kissing people they’d never seen before and have never seen since. I was there with my best mates to watch us win a European Cup. It was one of the best feelings in my life.”
“I am not someone that will be jumping around the pitch, but inside was the feeling of we have done something great. You could hear the fans. You could feel the atmosphere was amazing.”
Rafa Benitez
It was after midnight by the time the battle-weary Liverpool players made their way up onto the podium to receive their winners’ medals. As Gerrard waited to be presented with the greatest prize in club football, he bent down to kiss the trophy, which the Reds would get to keep as it was their fifth triumph in the competition.
“I am not someone that will be jumping around the pitch, but inside was the feeling of we have done something great,” Benitez said. “You could hear the fans. You could feel the atmosphere was amazing.
“It’s something that we are talking about 20 years later because it was the best final ever in terms of emotions.”
“I had all these stories running around in my mind and so it was incredible to be there, not watching it on a video or hearing them from other people who pull you aside in the pub and tell you about going to Rome [in a previous final],” Gibbons said. “Your team’s done it, and you are with all your mates and your family watching it happen. And not just that, but it’s the most incredible final of all time.
“You couldn’t write this story. I’ll never tire of talking about it. I’ll never tire of watching it. I’ll never tire of hearing about it. This football club has had some incredible nights, but I’m not sure that’ll ever be beaten because it was just absolutely amazing, and I feel so lucky to have been there.”
“I don’t think you’ll ever see a cup final like that again. It’s without doubt the greatest European Cup final ever.”
Kevin Walsh
For Walsh, too, Istanbul will forever be enshrined in the pantheon of great Liverpool nights, with its legend set to live on for generations.
“I think anybody who says that is not the greatest Champions League final must have at least an Everton shirt and probably an Everton tattoo,” he said. “There’s been some great games, there’s been some great finals, there’s been some upsets.
“But I don’t think you’ll ever see a cup final like that again. It’s without doubt the greatest European Cup final ever.”
