Following that legendary night at Anfield, Liverpool went on to win arguably the greatest final in European Cup history on May 25th in Istanbul, Turkey. I was offered two tickets for the final from Phil, the English fella that I had bought the semi final ticket from (he must have thought he had a sucker after what I paid him for the Chelsea game....), but sadly I had to turn them down as I had already planned a family vacation in California for that week.
Instead, I took my newly purchased Stevie G jersey with me to California and parked in front of the TV on match day. We were up against Italian giants A.C. Milan, arguably the stingiest defence in Europe at the time, led by the iconic Paolo Maldini.
What a disaster, by half time we were down 3-0, the dream of lifting a 5th European title was over. Or was it?
All it took was 6 minutes in the second half to turn the game into a night to remember. At the 54th minute Liverpool scored their first on a long range header by who else but the inspirational Steven Gerrard.
Two minutes later, substitute Vladimir Smicer fired a long range, low drive into the corner of the net 3 - 2. The Liverpool players and the 20,000 plus traveling supporters started to believe. Four minutes later, at the 60th minute mark, Gerrard was pulled down by Gattusso in the box - penalty! Xabi Alonso missed the penalty, but followed up and scored on the rebound, 3 - 3!! The remaining 36 minutes of regulation time and 30 minutes of extra time changed nothing. The game was settled with penalties when Liverpool's Polish keeper Jerzy Dudek stopped Ukranian striker Andriy Schevchenko's week penalty attempt. Liverpool's 25 year old captain, Gerrard, raised the cup marking the clubs 5th European Cup victory. As a 5 time winner of the competition, the trophy now resides permanently in the museum at Anfield.
One of the items on my "Master Dream List", is to see Liverpool in a cup final. Having missed out on Istanbul, I wasn't going to miss out on the FA Cup Final on May 13, 2006 in Cardiff, Wales. This time around I was able to convince one of my best friends, Corn, to come with me. He had never been to a match before and was up for the adventure.
Well, an adventure it was. I lined up the tickets from a Leyton Orient fan who had been allocated tickets, but had no desire to see either Liverpool or West Ham play in the final. All was well until his tickets didn't show up in the post. The week before the final, there was a major problem when 1,600 tickets were stolen somewhere along the postal system. Citing potential security problems, the FA and the Stadium authorities refused to let anyone in the ground that had tickets for the stolen section - you guessed it, our two tickets were located in that section. I placed an emergency call to Phil the guy that sold me the Chelsea semi final ticket. He didn't have any tickets, but he did contact BBC Sports telling them our tale in hopes of finding us a way into the stadium. We came all the way from Calgary to Cardiff, Wales and we were headed to a pub outside the grounds to watch the match on TV.
If there was ever a cup final that could top the 2005 Istanbul game, it would probably be the 2006 FA Cup Final against West Ham United. Just Like Istanbul it was that man Steven Gerrard that led the way, setting up one goal and scoring two. His second goal was the game tying goal in the 91st minute, and possibly one of the greatest goals ever in a cup final. Tied 3 - 3 after regulation and 30 minutes of added time, the game was decided on penalties with Liverpool winning 3 - 1. As excited as I was, I wasn't where I wanted to be. I wanted to be inside Millennium Stadium with the other 71, 000 people....
The occasionally let the footballers into Millennium Stadium, the home of Welsh Rugby.
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