Paolo Maldini has admitted that a decade on, the pain from the 2005 Champions League final loss against Liverpool remains for the AC Milan legend.
The story of the game needs no great recounting – Maldini’s 52-second goal made him the oldest scorer in the competition and the quickest ever in the final helped his side to a 3-0 half-time lead but the concession of three second half goals saw them go on to lose the game in extra time.
In an exclusive interview with Jamie Carragher, who played against him that night, for Sportsmail, Maldini recalled: “I didn’t sleep for three months after that! The game is still spoken about sometimes. If you watch the first half, you would never think that we were going to lose.
“But the thing people don’t remember is that it was not just in the first half that we played well. It was only six crazy minutes! After that we played well and had chances to score again. Liverpool players were physically destroyed and we couldn’t have did anything better.
“We arrived in Milan and our supporters were there, screaming at us ‘what have you done?’ but we gave it everything but it was a crazy game – I mean, I scored!” he laughed.
However, the Rossoneri captain was adamant in rubbishing speculation that he and his teammates had celebrated at the break and was full of praise for the Reds fans who he believes were influential in turning the game around themselves.
Maldini continued: “A story came out that we celebrated at half-time but that is impossible. It was crazy in the dressing room. People were screaming at each other, like fighting so Ancelotti had to turn around and say ‘shut up! I don’t want to hear a word from any of you for five minutes’ and then we started talking about what we did right, wrong and think about the second half.
“That was all. Nobody said anything [about winning]. Something happened in the second half – their fans. They started to sing. The stadium is usually 50-50 but it was 75-25 for them because our fans had sold tickets.
“You just have to accept the result even when it is sad. Two years later, we got our revenge because we didn’t play that well in Athens but still won.”
