Thanks for posting the video of the Luis Garcia goal. Been trying to find an unblemished version of the end of that game for ages. The remarkable roar and noise of Anfield as the final whistle went and the rendition of YNWA is spine tingling and a tear jerker. Wow - what a night that was. Never been so stressed and sick watching a football match - it felt like it went on for hours and hours.
Anfield's greatest night for me. The Barca match in 2019 is sensational but that 2005 semi remains unbeatable for me because the relentlessness of the crowd all night was remarkable. Me and my brother were struck by it all night when watching it on tv. Against a far far superior Chelsea team, the 40,000 Liverpool fans knew they had to pull the team over the line with every bit of strength they had. Still the greatest noise ever made and the fact that it was communicated so powerfully over tv...well I can only imagine what it would have been like to actually be there.
Agree with that So many factors:
1.Against a loathed manager who had only just shushed us.
2.Beating a machine of a side. 30 points league difference.
3.A Champions League final at stake, a destination most of us (not around in the 80s) could only have dreamed off. Seen Van Basten, Gullit, Maldini, Del Piero, Zidane, Davids, Kluivert, Raul, Beckham, Schmeichel, Effenberg, Kahn, Buffon, Shevchenko grace a final, and now we would.
4.The gap since the last final. Same trophy, but this was the modern era with the CL music, placards etc.
5.Gerrard. The best player I've ever seen at the club, we needed something big to keep him, and there is no bigger game for a club.
6.Being the game that took us to Istanbul, the setting for the greatest night the club has ever had.
Saw the game on TV also, but you didn't need to be there to feel the atmosphere. Never been anything like it.
The Barca game was an unbelievable comeback that could only have happened under Jürgen, but that was a great side and one who battered Barca in the first game despite the scoreline. That team being at that stage was fitting. Greatest comeback ever no doubt, vs the best player to ever play the game and without Mo and Bobby. We had been in the CL final before though, we belonged there, expected to be there. In 05 many of us were rubbing our eyes at being in a quarter against Juve, so to reach the semi was more unchartered territory in this era, reaching the final was just unthinkable.
