Chance for Revenge

Revenge. It’s a dish best served cold, according to certain Sicilian families in the "waste disposal" business. It also seems to be the whispered word on the lips of the Milanese as the Champions League Final gets ever nearer.

Two years appears to be long enough for the flames of vengeance to have cooled sufficiently for the fans and players of AC Milan. Now, with the chance to avenge the 2005 defeat to Liverpool just hours away, the rossoneri are blowing new life on those smoldering embers of retribution while claiming to be doing nothing of the sort.

Despite the protestations of the more cerebral members of Carlo Ancelotti’s team of World Cup winners and superstars, a burning desire for justice is surely flickering in the minds of those who suffered such ignominious defeat in Istanbul’s Ataturk Stadium. For every Kaka who says that the past means nothing, there is a Rino Gattuso snarling at the end of his master’s leash, waiting to chomp the legs of those who wounded his pride and crushed his dream.

Even Milan’s coach cannot resist throwing the odd bowl of tepid bitterness into his Italian designer microwave. Liverpool, Ancelotti suggests, are the least technical of the three Premiership teams to reach the Champions League semi-finals this year. He would have much preferred playing Manchester United in the final. But of course he would! He beat them.

Motivational tool

To suggest that the defeat on penalties in the 2005 final, after leading Liverpool 3-0 at half-time, will not feature as a motivational tool or pre-match topic in the Milan dressing room is preposterous.

It was not only a sporting defeat, but a spiritual loss akin to the grief that follows the death of a relative. The six-time winners had their hands on the cup and a ragged, surprise package team of opponents on the ropes.

As far as Milan were concerned, they weren’t even playing the best side in England, let alone a team equal to themselves in Europe. And yet, they lost. A Latin proverb states that "revenge is a confession of pain." You can only imagine the pain Milan felt at the end. To even consider that the night of May 25, 2005 will not be on the minds of at least some of the Milanese is ludicrous.

All of which suits Liverpool just fine. While the impression one gets of Milan is one of a team pacing the floor in barely contained anticipation, checking their diamond-encrusted watches and chewing furiously on gum which has long lost its taste, the Liverpool camp seems almost Trappist in comparison.H

How not to behave

While plotting the Reds’ downfall by watching DVDs of their games and sending scouts to Merseyside, Carlo Ancelotti should have added a compilation of Jose Mourinho sound bites to his preparatory files. He would then know that hot air disperses very quickly in the skies over Anfield. The Chelsea coach is a textbook example of how not to behave before facing Liverpool in a crunch match. Put-downs and barbs just rebound off the armor Liverpool coach Rafa Benitez keeps his charges encased in. Insults thrown in their direction come back infuriatingly unanswered -- and warmed-up plates of two-year old revenge just end up in your lap.

Benitez is a master tactician and a statistical obsessive to the point of compulsion. Nothing is allowed to interfere with how he wants his team to work and think. Talk of revenge and playground insults over style do not feature in his game plan and he will not allow any of the polemic coming from Italy to distract his players. If the memory of Istanbul is invoked in any way, it will be used to remind his players that going a goal – or even three -- down does not necessarily mean the game is over.

Liverpool came to the 2005 final blinking in the lights of an event none of them as players had ever experienced before. By the time many of them even realized what was going on, it was half over and they had a mountain to climb.

But the fact that they climbed that mountain and stuck a red flag of victory in the summit, in addition to the two seasons of improvement under Benitez which followed, means that this Liverpool team is a very different proposition to the one which made a mockery of the odds.

New stars

Benitez has new stars at his disposal after culling the squad of those players that did not fit his style or reach his high standards. Strikers Peter Crouch, Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy all offer many different options in attack; winger Jermaine Pennant provides added width, pace and improved delivery from the flanks, midfielder Javier Mascherano adds bite and cover to allow Steven Gerrard and Xabi Alonso the license to create.

The defense that was torn apart in Istanbul is now marshalled by a more mature and flawless Jamie Carragher with his new protégé, the hugely driven and accomplished Danny Agger, by his side. Each new addition has been brought in to fill a specific role and to play a certain way in the coach’s vision of how Liverpool should operate; a specialist cog for every part of the machine.

So if Milan take to the field on Wednesday night burning with the desire to exact revenge, then the victory for Liverpool will be half won. A cool mind is needed and Rafael Benitez will have kept each of his players in refrigeration before the game. Against a combustible side wanting blood, Liverpool can think and play their way into a position of dominance and then let the game plan and undoubted talent of this 2007 model finish the job.

Because, as another well-known quote suggests, revenge proves its own executioner.