Top 20 sporting moments of the decade: Istanbul

The Daily Telegraph's Football Correspondent Henry Winter explains why Liverpool's Champions League victory over AC Milan in 2005 was the oustanding sporting moment of the decade.

It was the six minutes that shook the world. It was the six minutes that so stunned AC Milan that Carlo Ancelotti's devastated players threw away their losers' medals at the end - much to the delight of the souvenir-hunters among Liverpool's apprentices.

It was the six minutes that turned sporting logic on its head, that sent the in-game betting world into meltdown, that stopped Evertonians celebrating in the streets back home, that had certain Chelsea players cursing their television screens in frustration.

Orchestrated by the determination of Steven Gerrard, the tactical cunning of Rafa Benítez and the support of fans who demanded that each player perform with pride in the shirt, these six minutes showed that you should never give up. Even now, four years on, a familiar exhortation will go around Liverpool players or supporters when they walk through a storm. "Remember Istanbul.''

Ancelotti's side were leading 3-0 at half-time and it could have been more. Kaka, Hernan Crespo and Andrei Shevchenko were untouchable. It was Milanese men against Mersey boys. At the break, Benítez gave a rousing speech and made the important tactical change of sending on Didi Hamann to sit in midfield, crying havoc and letting loose the dog of war that was Gerrard.

The goals flowed for Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso. Milan's spirit was broken and they folded completely in the penalty shoot-out. The six minutes that shook Milan's world made Liverpool once again the centre of the football universe.

What they said:

Steven Gerrard: "I remember walking off the pitch basically thinking what's going on? We haven't got started. If there was one positive in my mind that's what I was thinking, 'There's going to be a stage in this game where we come alive and we play', but we hadn't in the first half."

Jerzy Dudek: "I was just waiting for Shevchenko to score. I was concentrating on what I was going to do and I was starting to get really really nervous. I thought Shevchenko was 100 per cent to score. Shevchenko came, I did my movements and he stopped. I stopped too and thought 'You don't cheat me. You won't do it'

Paolo Maldini: "That was one of the best finals I ever played in. We played really well, much better than Liverpool, and we really deserved to win much more than them. But that's football."

This story has been reproduced from today's media. It does not necessarily represent the views or position of Liverpool Football Club.