Champions League Final: AC Milan vs Liverpool (ALL-match comments)

“When Steven Gerrard’s goal went in, the stadium became a furnace. It took me right back to Korea. You all saw how Liverpool played in the first half, they were terrible, yet still won the trophy. This isn’t the first time that we’ve thrown away a lead and it’s time to reflect on this issue. I don’t see how we’ll get back on our feet after this.” - gattuso

This is a tragic statement by Rino. how sad the last line is so defeatist. sure does a lot to fill us with confidendce.

I know what to blame! arrogance and complacency!!! did u see milan players' face when they got out from the tunnel to play the second half?? they(some of them) smiled and smirked! no pressure and marking on liverpool's players on their first 2 goals! what were they thinking? gerrard had all the time in the world to head the ball! milan destroyed my life for the last 2 days! i imagined how happy i would be if milan won it! i know i am responsible for my own life, but this defeat was just a big joke, i dont mind losing the final ( we cant win all the time), what i do mind is the way we lost it!! bad game from sheva,stam and dida!! i think sheva was the most arrogant of them all! stam fell asleep and he must have thought about lifting the cup before second half!
ARROGANCE AND COMPLACENCY!! now milan just signed johann vogel! i still love milan, but things will never be the same again! i dont want to feel this pain again, and the way to do that is not loving the team 100%! i dont care anymore how milan go, i love them no matter what the result is!

Originally Posted by Fabio

Edited:
FORZA MILAN

Nice touch, Rezag.

Originally Posted by Mehdi

It's not about getting name players and we're already massively in debt. Debts are irrelevant with a billionaire owner. The combined effect of a 20 team Serie A, Champions League and international football is too much for all clubs, especially those with ageing teams. You cannot rely on free transfers alone, this team is old and needs rebuilding. Real have won 3 European Cups in the last decade and are no longer in debt. We blew our chance of history on Wednesday not only did we blow our chance but our legacy was tarnished. What Sacchi and Capello built has been ruined by what has happened in Europe over the past two years and maybe it won't take as long to get back to where we belong but it will be impossible without rebuilding.

we are in not in such debt that we have to sell players to survive in serie A, like Parma and Lazio. i agree that the team needs rebuilding but not at the cost of being a chelsea. we all know what i am talking about here.

May 26, 2005

When it matters, Maldini fails to find the answers
From Rick Broadbent in Istanbul
ASK PAOLO. That was the message from Clarence Seedorf when the subject of age came up this week. Paolo generally has the answers and it looked like being the case again last night. Forget the taunt of time and the painting in the attic, the grand old man of Milan appeared to have the answers to life, the universe and Harry Kewell. And then Liverpool started asking unimaginable questions and he did not know what day it was.

Like Franco Baresi before him, Paolo Maldini is the pulse of Milan. This was his 789th appearance for them. His father played in the club’s first European game and lifted the most coveted trophy in club football in 1963. Together they form a timeline running through Milan’s history. In the other corner you had the likes of Kewell, who has spent most of the past two years aspiring to mediocrity and falling short. Playing with the unbridled bliss of someone whose barbecue has gone out, the Australian has been shuffling towards B-list status ever since he scored a delicious volley at Highbury in his previous incarnation as a good footballer with Leeds United. But that was two years ago.

It was a no-contest for 54 minutes. This was the Maldini who had brushed off the impertinent salvos of Cristiano Ronaldo in the round of 16. It does not matter that you cannot teach an old dog new tricks if the old tricks are good ones, and Ronaldo was sent packing, chastened from the headmaster’s office like a naughty schoolboy. For 54 minutes, Maldini looked like he could go on for ever. He is 37 next month and is the granddaddy of a back four that included Cafu, 35 next month, and Jaap Stam, who is a relative rookie at 32. Given the pre-match criticism of Liverpool’s style, you could have billed it as a clash between a team intent on parking a bus in front of their goal and a defence of bus-pass age.

Ask Paolo, they said. He always has the answers. It was just nobody expected to be asking him about goals. He does not score them. None this season and two in 148 European games. He is not that clever with his right foot either. Hence, a right-foot volley inside the first minute was a seismic shock to the system. It took Liverpool 21 years of hurt to get to Istanbul and 50 seconds for them to lose their way.

That Maldini should score even wrested the romance from Liverpool. The number of retro tops outside showed that lots of Merseysiders have never really got over 1977, when expectations were raised for ever in Rome, and nostalgia seeps from every Liverpool pore. So Milan, vastly experienced, were the pragmatic side of the European Cup, Liverpool its heart. But ask Paolo about romance. Seven finals, one club and a panoramic smile. His goal looked like being the icing on the career cake.

You could have asked Paolo why Rafael Benítez ditched the tried and tested but you should ask him what happened next? Steven Gerrard inspired a revival that had looked as unlikely as an Elvis comeback and Maldini and Milan were bemused.

Suddenly, the Milan back four looked old. Gerrard ghosted into the box for his header and carved a hole in the heart of the defence to win the penalty. Nesta, a mere stripling at 29, was slow in reacting to Dida’s penalty save. The tousled were ruffled. When Shevchenko tumbled over, you could have said things were going arse over titanium plates — he has five in his face.

That Milan ran out of steam in Serie A and had not won in their previous four matches adds to the doubts about the back four, while the way they were terrorised by PSV Eindhoven in the semi-final second leg shows this is not the greatest of Milan defences. They had been here before, too, the collapse against Deportivo La Coruña in last year’s European Cup, squandering a three-goal lead from the first leg, just as baffling.

It remains to be seen what impact this unforgettable night has on Maldini and Milan. He will feel that he is good enough to get another chance, but time may finally be catching up with him.

Ancelotti finds no comfort in defeat
By Paola Franchetti
(Filed: 27/05/2005)

In pictures: Liverpool stun Milan

A nightmare that came true. AC Milan fans dreading the Champions League final against Liverpool would be a repeat of 1978, when Liverpool won the European Cup and Milan finished the season empty-handed, woke up yesterday with their forebodings realised.

Losing a Champions League final after you have been 3-0 ahead is hard to accept even for the coolest player or manager. Many of the 30,000 fans who had watched the match on the maxi-screen in Milan's Piazza Duomo left in tears.

"3-0, we were up 3-0! I just can't accept this!" said Andrea Mariani, a 22-year-old Milan fan, as television cameras trained on the tears running down his face. "Sheva missing a penalty, that's ridiculous, unthinkable!" And yet true.

Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister who owns AC Milan, had said before that defeat would have made the season "disappointing". His words after the game were not only of disappointment, but of a fan's bitterness and anger.

"It's inconceivable, what happened, and yet it did," Berlusconi said. "We conceded three very strange goals, they had three goal chances in the whole match. They hit us three times, and the truth is we played better for the whole game - Shevchenko had lots of chances. But I won't fire anyone over this."

Milan coach Carlo Ancelotti refused to comment on speculation about his future, saying simply: "You will see in September on whose bench I sit." It is no secret that former Italy and AC Milan manager Arrigo Sacchi, now a football director at Real Madrid, is trying to convince Ancelotti to join the galacticos.

But never before has Ancelotti been so cryptic about his future. Indeed, he could not find an explanation in defeat. "I don't know what happened," he said. "It was something weird and incredible. We threw away all of what we did in six minutes. We're disappointed, enraged, embittered. But we must move on."

The media are considering squad changes, despite the presence of 2004 European Footballer of the Year Andrei Shevchenko in attack, Alessandro Nesta and Paolo Maldini in defence, and Clarence Seedorf, Rui Costa and Kaká in midfield.

AC Milan vice-president Adriano Galliani, whose side have also lost the Italian title to Juventus, said: "We have an entire summer to forget and start over again. It's very hard to accept this defeat because we played better even in the second half except for those fatal six minutes. Three goals in six minutes, it's unbelievable. But fans mustn't worry for the future - both Berlusconi and I are very confident."

Paolo Maldini, the Milan captain who at 36 has won just about every trophy possible with the club, said: "I will remember this defeat for a long, long time. My goal was useless, because what matters is lifting the trophy. But I prefer losing by playing well rather than not playing up to our standards."

Shevchenko sat crying in the middle of the pitch. He said: "If you ask Dudek, even he will tell you that he doesn't understand how it was possible how the second of my two shots from close range in the final minutes didn't end in his goal. A win hangs by a thread in football. And it can turn into an incredible defeat."

Spook :8

Liverpool=believe in that crap

What happened to Sergi?

He loose the ball several time

And the penalty, that happened to everyone once in a while, but God, that penalty

I think he played very well when he came on, if it weren't for a determined Gerrard there would have been allot more dangerous crosses into the box. You not remember JTD's miss from 6 yards, that was Serginho's cross.

Recently Serginho has been a very good substitue for us, he changed games recently.
Just forget the penalty, i think this is the 1st one he missed and we all know that pressure takes a huge part in this

He played very well indeed and although Gerrard seemd to get the better of his crosses, Serginho did create soe very good opportunities for our strikers who unfortunately dilligently managed to miss everything - it wasn't just JDT's miss but also Sheva's double attempt at goal, two minutes from the end of extra time. Sheva's miss could easily go in history as one of the most "unbelievable" and important in football history.

Originally Posted by Nadir

is why you don't see Milan go in the red like SO MANY CLUBS around the world - like Lazio and even Real Madrid.

i think you are wrong here, Milan still has rather huge debts. They don't spend a lot of monye on transfers, but they have 40 players in theur squad who all earn a lot of money. Ok, the debts are not that huge like Lazio for example, but we have debts. Berlusconi even voted the 'salva calcio' law, which is normally against the restrictions of the EU, to solve some financial problems

Hi lads,
I've read a lot of the posts and understandably there is a lot of anger, sadness and frustration amongst the Rossoneri. I feel a little bit embarrassed coming on here after my team, Liverpool, who were clearly out played for large parts of the game, won the cup. First half was embarrassing from our point of view as Milan were superior in every department. I thought that Kaka was amazing and the movement of Crespo and Shevchenko had our defence, particularly Traore, running round in circles. This was down to poor Liverpool tactics in my opinion, with Rafa leaving out Hamann for the very poor Kewell. Had we started like this then I think it would have been a lot closer in the first half. I said it before the game, and my opinion has not changed that Milan are a much better team than us, despite us taking the cup home. You capitalised on our mistakes and at half time we all thought that it was game over too. We sang "we're gonna win 4-3" for it's comedy value, rather than in belief.

If you want to know why Liverpool won the cup it's because it was our destiny, if you like, our year to win it. We had some good luck on the way to the final, and a lot of important decisions went for us, in particular being 1-0 down at half time against Olympiakos and then getting the required 3-1 win in the 2nd half to make it to the knock out stages. Against Chelsea Lampard, Drogba and Gudjohnsen all missed good chances to score, as well as the goal we scored which so easily could have been not given. Add to that, the fact that for similar reasons to ours, Milan let us play in red so they can play in white, which is the colour we have won all our European Cups in, everyone in Liverpool believed that it was our season. Obviously that opinion was forgotten at half time but once the 1st goal went in, everyone then believed that we could win. Liverpool fans have won a lot of money betting on our team. I had £100 at 80/1 as I do every year and I was not on my own as the betting companies in the UK have pad out millions of pounds.

A lot of comments have been made such as "sack Ancelotti", "Sheva is to blame" "Tomasson is sh!t" etc etc. In my opinion, you have a great team, with great fans, and such talk is unnecessary. Carlo, Sheva and Tomasson have all made important contributions on the road to the final and this should not be forgotten because you got beaten. So don't try and fix what's not broken, get behind your team and leave Ancelotti to do his job quietly and you will soon get the fruits that you deserve.

I made a few new Italian friends this week, and exchanged e-mail addresses so that we could exchange photos from the trip. Looking forward to next season, I hope you win the Scudetto, and good luck in the Champion's League. Hopefully we will be granted a place so that we can retain it, but if we can't then please make sure that you do.

Forza Milan...

YOU'LL NEVER WALK ALONE

Respect to you, mate. You are the man.

Originally Posted by Mehdi

It's not about 4 years ago it's about now, it's about next season. Chelsea and Barca were nothing 4 seasons ago, now they are champions of their leagues, have young squads loaded with talent and chairman who are willing to spend big. If you sit still you get left behind. Berlusconi needs to spend and needs to spend big.

you don't need to spend big...you need to spend smart...which is what we have been doing for the last 4 years.....milan will be back in this final next year...mark my words