Football · 2005 · Istanbul, Turkey
The Miracle of Istanbul
Three goals down to AC Milan at half-time in the Champions League final, Liverpool score three times in six second-half minutes and win the trophy on penalties.
Liverpool 3-3 AC Milan (Liverpool win 3-2 on pens)
Result
0-3
Half-time score
6 minutes
Comeback goals scored in
AC Milan led Liverpool 3-0 at half-time in the 2005 Champions League final, Paolo Maldini scoring inside the first minute and Hernán Crespo adding two more either side of the interval. Pundits watching in the studio openly discussed the game as effectively over; the trophy presentation seemed a formality.
Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard headed in from a corner in the 54th minute, and within six minutes Vladimír Šmicér and a Xabi Alonso penalty rebound had levelled the score at 3-3. Extra time settled nothing further, and the match went to a penalty shootout in which goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek's saves, including one from Andriy Shevchenko's decisive kick, won Liverpool their fifth European Cup.
Known ever after as the Miracle of Istanbul, the comeback is regularly cited as the greatest in the competition's history, a collapse for Milan as total as the recovery was for Liverpool, both inside the same 45 minutes of football.
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