Dubai: Ten years after the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’, former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher has revealed how coach Rafael Benitez inspired the club’s historic 2005 Uefa Champions League final victory.
The Reds were 3-0 down to AC Milan at half-time in the Turkish capital after Paolo Maldini’s opener and a Hernan Crespo brace. But Liverpool fought back after the interval, levelling with three efforts inside six minutes from Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso, before going on to win the game 3-2 on penalties.
Speaking at McGettingan’s in Jumeirah Lakes Towers in Dubai on Saturday, Carragher praised newly appointed Real Madrid coach Benitez for masterminding the comeback.
“Normally when you are 3-0 down at half-time you walk off angry, but this was a different reaction, this was embarrassment on a major scale,” said the former England centre-back. “I was fearing four or five and wishing we had never got to the final.
“There wasn’t any shouting in the dressing room. Didi [Dietmar Hamann] went straight out to warm up, so we knew he was coming on. Rafa’s English wasn’t so good, so he just said ‘[Djimi] Traore, shower’ but then the physio said Steve Finnan couldn’t continue.
“Finnan was arguing because he didn’t want to come off. But what Rafa did then was brilliant thinking on his feet. He had already made one substitution [Smicer for Harry Kewell on 23 minutes] and if he switches Hamann for Traore, and Finnan has to come off later, that’s it, all three of his subs are used. So he says: ‘Finnan, shower. Traore, out the shower’.
“Didi comes back in and Rafa says we’re changing the system to three in defence, with Djimi, Smicer and myself, Gerrard pushing further up and Hamann playing defensive midfield. The combination of Didi coming on and the changes at half-time got us there by hook or by crook.”
Carragher added that the fans were integral to the comeback.
“We could hear the crowd from the dressing room. It wasn’t a chant, they weren’t bouncing, but you could hear a sort of hymn and that put a lump in your throat because you felt sorry for them.
“Seventy-five per cent of the stadium was Liverpool and there was no doubt that had a massive impact.”
When asked at what point he felt the comeback was possible, Carragher replied: “At 3-2 down I knew we would get back into the game. You could just feel the emotion. The pendulum had swung.
“The first goal gave us hope, but when the second went in the roof came off. Then Alonso missed a penalty but reacted well to score the follow-up. At 3-3 we had something to lose again and the game went back into AC Milan’s favour.
“We knew that to have come back from 3-0 down was a miracle in itself, now it was just a case of hanging on to get to penalties.”
Carragher added that Benitez’s genius shone through in his penalty selection as well.
“Alonso was our designated penalty taker but, because he’d missed his earlier penalty, Rafa felt it would be playing on his mind. Luis Garcia was overlooked because of cramp and Rafa felt he wasn’t strong enough. In the end he chose the three subs — Smicer, Hamann and [Djibril] Cisse — because they were fresher. The attention to detail with which he picked his penalty takers was another thing he got massive credit for.
“But then there was also Jerzy [Dudek] in goal. I was pleading with him to be one of the most horrible men in football, because he’s normally so nice.
“I had visions of him giving the ball to [Andriy] Shevchenko and saying ‘good luck Andriy’ — that’s the type of lad he is. I told him he’d never get an opportunity like this again, ‘you are in goal and you can win us the cup, do everything you can to win the match. Whether it’s poor sportsmanship or not, don’t worry about it’.”
To this day Carragher said he still couldn’t believe the turnaround.
“Besides those six minutes, AC Milan had put in one of the best performances I’d ever seen in a Champions League final. They had [Paolo] Maldini, Cafu, Jaap Stam, Andrea Pirlo, Gennaro Gattuso, Crespo, Shevchenko and Kaka, and I often think how [on earth] did we win that game? But we did.”
