Rafael Benitez is entitled to claim that his Liverpool team are one game from greatness, writes Michael Walker
Everyone said it was going to be one of those nights. It was going to be a replica of the magical 1970s evening when St Etienne were done for, or more recently when Roma had to be beaten 2-0 three years ago by Gerard Houllier's Liverpool and were beaten 2-0. So it proved.
Houllier's assertion after the Roma game was that his players were "10 games from greatness" - Liverpool were top of the Premiership with five matches to go and then met Bayer Leverkusen in this competition's quarter-finals. It all fell apart for them then, but now it feels like ancient history.
As of last night, Houllier's successor, Rafael Benitez, is entitled to claim that his Liverpool team are one game from greatness, and that game is the Champions League final in Istanbul three weeks today.
Milan will probably have to be overcome then - though having dismissed Juventus in the last round that should not be the fearsome prospect some may anticipate - but even if that happened and Liverpool won a fifth European Cup, then it would be a strange kind of greatness.
Not only has Benitez programmed his side to defend like fury, this being a classic example - note Steven Gerrard's 89th-minute block on Eidur Gudjohnsen - there is the small matter that Liverpool have not been champions of any league since 1990.
Gerrard was always going to be at the centre of all things Liverpool. On the pitch this was evident from the off, the captain's touch propelling Milan Baros into the Chelsea area and his collision with Petr Cech. Luis Garcia gleefully followed up to score; after that Luis Garcia was a box of tricks, but Gerrard had made an impact.
Along with Jerzy Dudek, Sami Hyypia, Jamie Carragher and John Arne Riise, Gerrard was a survivor from the starting XI that night against Roma. Forget the 1970s and 1980s, these men had a direct connection to an electric European occasion at Anfield.
Of greater relevance, however, was a match in February at Cardiff's Millennium stadium. Chelsea won the League Cup final 3-2 after Liverpool had taken the lead through Riise with 45 seconds gone.
More than an hour followed, an hour of patient Chelsea passing, before Gerrard's still incredible headed own goal brought the Londoners an equaliser.
So, while Luis Garcia's toe-poke was an echo of Jari Litmanen's seventh-minute penalty that evening against Roma, Liverpool were mentally close enough to Cardiff to realise that they faced a long toil even with a one-goal advantage.
Dietmar Hamann was an unremarkable presence in Wales but back on his home turf, after missing all but six minutes of the past nine Liverpool games, Hamann was offering a reminder of what had been missing. There was little scope for passing available to the German, but when Hamann put in a potentially treacherous tackle on Didier Drogba on 16 minutes and then another on Eidur Gudjohnsen three minutes later, Benitez knew his midfielder's worth.
With Gerrard advanced to support Baros, Hamann was proving to be a pivotal performer. Frank Lampard's relative anonymity - by his standards - was partly attributable to this, while behind Hamann, Carragher was doing his best to imitate a one-man fortress.
The question was how long this state could be maintained.
And the worry for Liverpool was that Carragher, and Hyypia alongside him, were having to be that resolute. When Chelsea upped the tempo at the beginning of the second half, Liverpool's concern grew visibly.
Possession was not being savoured in the Liverpool way, but squandered. But Liverpool had a grip on victory and not even six minutes of injury time could prise it away. - Guardian Service
