Hernan Crespo once revealed why he had to stay and watch Steven Gerrard lift the Champions League for Liverpool in 2005

For all the success Liverpool have enjoyed in recent years, their 2005 Champions League win still stands out as something truly magical.

Against all the odds, the Reds fought back from 3-0 down to beat AC Milan on penalties.

Even after Jurgen Klopp delivered another European crown in 2019, and two more Premier League titles have been secured since, that night in Istanbul remains a special one in Liverpool history.

Steven Gerrard stepped up to put in his defining performance at Liverpool, dragging the Reds back into the game against a far superior Milan side.

But while so much has been written from a Liverpool point of view, the accounts of Milan players have, understandably, been much fewer and further between.

One of the most interesting accounts, however, came from striker Hernan Crespo, who scored the Italian team’s second and third goals of the game. Speaking 13 years on from the final in 2018, Crespo laid bare the pain of defeat to Liverpool.

Photo by Tom Jenkins/Getty Images

Hernan Crespo wanted to retire after Istanbul

Like most of his Milan teammates, Crespo was unstoppable in the first-half. The Argentine finished at close range for 2-0 before dinking home one of the great, lost Champions League final goals.

With Liverpool back level, Crespo was taken off with five minutes of normal time remaining. And from the bench, he then saw Jerzy Dudek defy physics to save from strike partner Andriy Shevchenko.

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“I was on the bench at that moment, when Shevchenko missed this, I thought ‘oh my God’ it’s not today for us,” he told Stadium Astro in July 2018. “If that ball went to Gattuso’s feet, I would say ‘okay, that happened’ but for Shevchenko to miss with Dudek, it was really a miracle. In that moment I understood, it’s not tonight.”

Asked to comment on Gerrard’s performance on the night, Crespo admitted that he had been so focused on how Milan could have thrown away the win, he barely registered Liverpool at all.

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“I want to be clear, losing was so big that I never focused on them,” he replied. “At the end of the penalty kicks when everyone came to the dressing room I stayed outside. I walked behind the trophy to understand better what had happened.

“When the president of UEFA gave to Gerrard and Gerrard lifted the cup I said, ‘what has happened. It’s unbelievable.’ I was in shock at that moment, I wanted to see that it was Gerrard not [AC Milan captain Paolo] Maldini who lifted the cup.”

“It was a very hard moment in the dressing room and coming back to Italy,” Crespo added. “In that moment you want to leave football because I played very well, scored two goals. I remembered to look into the eyes of Carragher and Hyypia saying ‘we are in trouble’ because it’s impossible to stop me.

“You feel like you are at the top of your level and it’s not enough. I said, no way, I want to leave football. But, day by day you recover and try to focus on another challenge.”

Did Crespo retire after losing against Liverpool?

As Liverpool supporters, it is not often you are forced to think about that night in Istanbul from a Milan perspective. But it must have been a torturous experience.

Nevertheless, Crespo, and many of his teammates, did bounce back. But the former Argentina international was not part of the team who got revenge by beating Liverpool in Athens in 2007, as he was only on loan from Chelsea.

In the summer of 2005 he returned to England, facing Liverpool once again as he scored 13 goals in 42 games for Chelsea.

From there, Crespo spent three years with Milan’s great rivals Inter, before seeing out his career with spells at Genoa and Parma.

Yet to turn 30 at the time of Istanbul, he played on for another seven years before announcing his retirement in 2012.

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