AC Milan and Italy icon Pippo Inzaghi has rubbished long-running rumours that his side celebrated at half-time of their 2005 Champions League final defeat to Liverpool.
Inzaghi was injured for the game, in which he saw his Rossoneri teammates go in 3-0 up at the break before falling victim to the Reds' famous 'Miracle of Istanbul' comeback.
Answering readers' questions for the latest issue of FourFourTwo available to buy, the 2006 World Cup winner – who's currently manager of Serie B side Reggina 1914 – reflected on that night 18 years ago. He recalled:
"I’d suffered a knee injury, so wasn’t in the matchday squad for Istanbul, but I was at the stadium and I remember that my team-mates played a superb game. I went to the dressing room at half-time; the atmosphere was tense, and Carlo Ancelotti was desperate to remind everyone that it wasn’t over yet. No one was already celebrating, as I have often read here and there."
The Milan contingent not involved were ready to celebrate, though, as Inzaghi explained:
"Those of us sat in the stands wore a celebratory T-shirt underneath, but the players going back on to the pitch didn’t know anything about that. We played at our best in that final – better than in any other and definitely way better than in Athens two years later – but that six-minute blackout in the second half cost us the trophy. From then on, it all went wrong."
Naturally, Inzaghi wishes that he could have been on the pitch to make a difference. He concluded:
"Andriy Shevchenko had a massive double chance with a couple of minutes to go; normally it’s impossible to save such a shot, but somehow Jerzy Dudek did. I couldn’t help my team-mates avoid defeat that night, and nor could I two years earlier in the Intercontinental Cup loss against Boca Juniors in Japan; I only played a few minutes and wasn’t at my top level. That was frustrating."
