The outcome, extraordinarily, is that Rafael Benítez’s team will contest the European Cup final on May 25 and José Mourinho was a lone voice in proclaiming that they do not deserve their shot at immortality in Istanbul.
Banished 20 years ago after their last, tragic appearance in the Continent’s most prestigious match, at the Heysel disaster, Liverpool will be welcomed back by lovers of football across England and Europe. The name still stirs the soul and many of the great names of the past were at an ecstatic Anfield last night to witness a thrilling 1-0 victory that did not deserve to be undermined by Chelsea’s complaints about Luis García’s early goal.
In response, Benítez rightly pointed out that Petr Cech was lucky not to have been sent off and have a penalty awarded against him for felling Milan Baros seconds earlier. “We played them four times before and lost some games that we could have won,” the Liverpool manager said. You did not have to be wearing a red shirt to feel that, over the two legs, justice had been done.
It was fraught and frantic, particularly when the referee enraged home fans by allowing six minutes of stoppage time, but Liverpool succeeded where so many teams had failed, in making Chelsea look ordinary. We had come to regard Mourinho as invincible, but the Portuguese, like his players, was impotent in the face of heroic defending from Jamie Carragher and superb performances from, among others, Steve Finnan, Dietmar Hamann and Steven Gerrard.
Unbeaten for more than two seasons in Europe, campaigns that yielded the Uefa Cup and European Cup, Mourinho came up against an equally masterful tactician in Benítez, this understated Spaniard who is a legend on Merseyside after only one season. Mourinho will have to settle for the Carling Cup and the Barclays Premiership title in his first campaign in English football. “I am still special and my players are still heroes,” he said, but they ran out of steam and ideas.
As the Kop stayed behind after the final whistle to sing hymns of triumph, the mind turned over all sorts of ramifications. As Gerrard saluted the fans, was the captain pledging himself to his boyhood club and spurning the advances of Chelsea? Lifting the European Cup would be a strange note on which to depart. “This is the best moment of my life by a million miles,” he said. “Was it a goal? I don’t know. We’re just happy to be going to the final. Chelsea put us under pressure and we had to defend well.” Michael Owen, watching in his role as a TV expert, said: “I defy anyone to say whether it’s definitely over the goalline.
Up in the directors’ box, what were the thoughts of Brian Barwick, the Football Association’s chief executive and a passionate Liverpool fan? Lennart Johansson, the president of Uefa, has backtracked from his suggestion that England could receive five places in next season’s Champions League. Barwick and his board will have to sit down before May 25 and decide if Liverpool should be denied a place in next year’s competition — possibly to allow Everton, their neighbours, in as the fourth-placed team in the Premiership — even if they lift the trophy.
Others must have already been looking ahead to that night in Istanbul, where Liverpool are almost certain to meet AC Milan, who will expect to protect a 2-0 lead away to PSV Eindhoven this evening.
The night finished with heartbreak for Chelsea players such as John Terry and Frank Lampard, beaten in last year’s semi- finals, but the scenes of celebration will live long in the memory. Among the spectators was Phil Neal, the last man to captain Liverpool to a European Cup final, and Owen, who can never have expected that Liverpool would reach the European Cup final when he headed to Real Madrid. Nor could anybody else, which is what makes it all the more glorious.