Soccer Champions League final/Liverpool v AC Milan: This is a night to test the power of innocence. The European Cup is to be fought over by a wide-eyed side and a team that has seen it all before.
It is rumoured that World Cup finalist Dietmar Hamann is to be deposited among the substitutes and there would then be no one at all in the Liverpool line-up who has played for any of football's mightiest prizes.
The Milan coach, Carlo Ancelotti, claims that the novices in the opposition will be undermined by tension, but he must be aware, too, that the inexperience could make them unpredictable. Though the Serie A club should prevail, the history of the tournament does chronicle uprisings by players who were meant to be subjugated.
Paolo Maldini has met with such rebellions, even if the Milan captain's record seems to have an unassailable ring to it. The 36-year-old's fresh appearance belies all the heavy lifting of silverware he has done and this evening there may be a fifth winner's medal in the competition, 16 seasons after he received his first. He has, for all that, known fragility and disappointment as well.
Going into the 1995 final his club were the holders, but they were overcome by the naively fearless youngsters of Ajax. Liverpool are older and rather less talented than Louis Van Gaal's group 10 years ago, but they will feel, as the Dutchmen did, that a voyage into the unknown is a jaunt.
The Anfield club has a fabulous heritage and it is not unthinkable that this generation will deliver a fifth European Cup. The side could never have expected to be in Istanbul and it is Milan who have the cares of an institution that is supposed at least to pencil a Champions League final appearance into its diary every season. "We can balance their experience with our hunger," said Rafael Benitez pithily.
"It will only be an open game if one team scores an early goal," he warned. "We will try to be as compact and tight as possible. We will do what we have done so successfully to get this far."
Despite that, Benitez may not have been telling the complete story of his intentions. Harry Kewell is becoming prominent in the schemes of an employer who sounded sceptical a while ago of the Australian's inventory of injuries. This is not so much a change of heart by Benitez as a recognition that he will need the flair of which Kewell is capable.
The manager cannot be indifferent to the semi-final matches with PSV Eindhoven that were full of panic for the Milan back four. Benitez will be conservative, but it is also prudent to have some means of probing for weaknesses. While the Italian club considers its defence to be the best in the world, its form, like the Serie A title that has passed to Juventus, has been lost in recent weeks.
Cafu journeys at speed down the right flank, but the 34-year-old is prone to mislay his return ticket nowadays and Kewell, in addition to John Arne Riise, could be active in any space the Brazilian leaves. Even in the middle Steven Gerrard must be true to himself and, from time to time, pounce on Milan.
It would not be shrewd of Benitez to think purely of blocking Ancelotti's team. Apart from the fact that it is an unreliable way to win a game, he ought not to depend solely on defending. Juventus and Chelsea may have been stifled, but they do not own a centre-forward of the highest calibre. Milan possess Andriy Shevchenko and he will be paired with another striker of menace in Hernan Crespo.
More heroics are required of Jamie Carragher, but Liverpool must not treat the occasion as a burden. "It's not about pressure," said the manager. "We shouldn't be anxious. We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I have great confidence in my team."
If Benitez really does dispense with Hamann, who was so proudly central to the home win over Chelsea, Gerrard and Xabi Alonso will have to share the gap-plugging duties usually carried out by the German. With Kaka close to the Milan attack, they dare not have any forgetful moments.
Should Milan throw off the torpor of the past month, Andrea Pirlo's development of moves, Kaka's creativity and Shevchenko's finishing could be too much for Liverpool. There would be no anguish in that and Benitez does not delude himself that he has firmly re-established the club at an eminent level. "You can't say that after this match," he stated, "but maybe after one or two years we will see whether we are on the verge of a new era."
All the same, Benitez would agree that the timetable could be torn up for the night if, as is perfectly conceivable, Liverpool just happen to get the better of it in a single game with Milan.
The Ataturk Stadium is a venue unloved by the people of Istanbul, its yawning architecture letting the atmosphere escape. Nonetheless, the Liverpool fans will somehow turn it into an intimate theatre as, on the stage below, their players rise to an even greater challenge.
Ataturk Olympic Stadium, Istanbul, Tonight, Kick-off - 7.45 pm
TV coverage: RTE 2 (from 7.10 pm), UTV (from 7 pm), Sky Sports (from 6 pm)
