MIRACLE MEN

WHEN you get homesick nothing will stop you returning to the arms of those you love.

- Journalist Chris Bascombe

AC Milan had a few tricks up their sleeves to keep the European Cup away from her spiritual base. They tempted her with sublime skills, destructive finishing and a fairytale script, courtesy of their legendary captain.

Paolo Maldini wasn’t just holding the trophy at half-time, he was planning his fifth acceptance speech.

What he never foresaw was the homing device triggered by 35,000 Liverpool fans in the Ataturk Stadium who inspired their side to transform the most humiliating night in their history to the most triumphant.

The European Cup didn’t fancy Paolo. She wanted Steven but it took a series of remarkable chat-up lines from the Liverpool manager to ensure his skipper got his wicked way. The only reason Liverpool weren't fatally wounded by a first-half blitz is the fortunate fact immortals can’t be destroyed.

Gerrard and company have rewritten football “possibilities” throughout this campaign but even the heroic efforts of Olympiakos, Juventus and Chelsea were rendered insignificant compared to this.

It shouldn't have happened. Some of us aren't convinced it did. Only the pinch marks confirm it. We thought it was all over. It wasn’t.

Liverpool fans faced a sickening dilemma. What do you do when your side is 3-0 down in the Champions League final to a side superior in every position?

Praying was one option.

Another, which was rather attractive at half-time last night, was to grab the nearest taxi back to Taksin Square and drink the night away trying to forget the embarrassment they had just suffered.

The other alternative, which one red-shirted gent decided was more favourable, was to start an impromptu rendition of You'll Never Walk Alone, drowned in the kind of sentimentality Liverpool’s opponents find repulsive.