KEY POINTS:
Jamie Carragher calls it "as good a game as there's ever been". None of the 40-odd thousand Liverpool supporters who made it to the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Istanbul for the Champions League final of 2005 would be inclined to disagree.
But the first thing to acknowledge in advance of Thursday's rematch with Milan in Athens is that the football world can hardly expect anything remotely as dramatic this time. The best we can hope for is that the quality on both sides survives the surface tension of a major final, and that Liverpool can make more of a game of it than the new English champions, Manchester United, managed in the San Siro this month.
Most of England - little blue pockets of Merseyside and the red ones of Manchester excepted - would happily settle for a repeat of United's home leg with Milan, in which the Italian side were deservedly ahead at halftime, and should have extended their lead, only to be somehow beaten before the end of the night by a classic British mix of perspiration and inspiration. Shades of Istanbul.
But when United went to Milan with a weakened defence the home team produced what their superb attacking midfielder Kaka describes as "the perfect game", and this time there was no way back from a 3-0 deficit.
Alarmingly for Liverpool, Kaka believes achieving perfection may be possible twice in the same month, even against what Milan consider to be very different opposition.
Kaka said: "I believe we can play like that many other times. Manchester have a better quality of passing, whereas Liverpool is different. It has the typical characteristics of English football. It is very well-trained and a very tactical."
If there is an element of damning with faint praise there, Milan will at least be well aware that those characteristics include a stubborn refusal to submit when three goals behind. What a pity that the television cameras had to remain the wrong side of the Liverpool dressing room at half-time in Istanbul. Instead, we have to build up a picture from the testimony of those inside.
Steven Gerrard, a local lad already torn apart by Chelsea's desire to take him to West London: "I couldn't concentrate. I had my head in my hands. I thought it was over."
Carragher: "I've seen a picture of me and Stevie behind each other when the third goal went in, and you can see in our faces total dejection. People always ask what happened at half-time and want to hear you say we were all like lunatics, saying, 'We're going to win'. But I was more fearing it was going to be five or six the way they were playing."
It was certainly the time for a manager to earn his corn. Rafa Benitez, walking through a storm of doubt, held his head up high and concentrated on thinking straight.
"First I wanted to change the system, then I had to give confidence to the players. The supporters can give the players emotion, but you have to give them solutions. I told them to get one goal and I thought the other team would be afraid."
The necessary changes were effectively forced on him, and this week he must get them right first time. Above all, Kaka cannot be allowed the room he exploited to such brilliant effect in the first 45 minutes. He allowed the belatedly introduced Dietmar Hamann to subdue him a little in the second half, though only after winning the free-kick from which Andriy Shevchenko all but made the score 4-0.
Attack is the one area in which both teams have changed completely. Kaka now plays as a support striker just behind Filippo Inzaghi or Alberto Gilardino, likely to break into the penalty area and employ his deadly finishing, as he did three times over the two legs against United.
"I think he's the best player in the world," Carragher admits. "You remember his performance in the first half in Istanbul. We all felt he was definitely the man, with Ronaldinho, and this season he's probably gone on to eclipse him."
They will need to keep on top of him, and Javier Mascherano is the most obvious choice for the job, rather than risking Carragher being pulled out of position and leaving the inexperienced Daniel Agger one-on-one with Inzaghi. Nor can Liverpool afford to concentrate on Kaka to the exclusion of the Dutchman Clarence Seedorf, who was just as effective in the United games.
With Kaka moved forward, Massimo Ambrosini has been brought into the midfield and Seedorf has greater licence to attack. Behind them are a beautifully complementary pair in the spiky Gennaro Gattuso and the elegant Andrea Pirlo.
As Benitez needs Mascherano, Xabi Alonso and Gerrard in his midfield, the Liverpool captain will almost certainly have to influence the play from out on the right.
Milan are confident that Paolo Maldini's troublesome 38-year-old knee will allow him to start a sixth European Cup final, probably in the centre rather than at full-back, where Massimo Oddo and the Czech Marek Jankulovski are the babies of the defence at a mere 30 and 29 respectively.
"They have more balance," said Benitez, reflecting on the changes from two years ago. "They have good, experienced defenders, they are really strong in midfield, and they play with one striker and one player just between the lines.
"That is more difficult for defenders sometimes. It is dangerous to talk about just Kaka. The rest of the team is really good too. You need to think about their weaknesses as well as their strengths."
Good luck with finding those, Rafa. Perhaps there is a little secret hidden in the scribbled notes that inspired his half-time talk in Istanbul, which he has kept "not as a souvenir but because I will be using them again, for sure".
His notes on the season as a whole, when they come to be written, may be flavoured by the result on Thursday, though, as ever, Benitez will look at the big picture. It will show no progress at all in the Premiership, with 14 points fewer than last season, clinging on to third place on goal difference ahead of Arsenal, who won comfortably at Anfield in both domestic cups; on the other hand, a bad start in the League - Liverpool were 10th in mid-November - encouraged them to prioritise Europe.
Milan, handicapped by an eight-point deduction in Serie A, did the same, and both sides were able to take advantage of that against the more ambitious United and Chelsea.
Benitez accepts that there is much catching up to do on that pair, but in the meantime can envisage a magnificent consolation prize on Thursday: "If we win, people might still be talking about it in a hundred years."
Champions League final
AC Milan v Liverpool, Athens
Thursday, 6.25am (NZT).
- INDEPENDENT
