1st May 2007, Dirk Kuyt dispatches the penalty that sends Liverpool into the Champions League final. A classic, the game was not. The intensity though was equal to that of its 2005 predecessor.
It was a game that highlighted the superiority of the Premier League over its continental rivals and a game that was a battle for European seniority amongst two of the English game’s elite.
11 managers and 6 years later, the two faced battle again at Anfield on Sunday past and the stakes were tame by comparison. In seasons gone by, fans could be forgiven for expecting this end of season clash to be a potential title decider. Instead, Liverpool were battling for nothing more than the chance to finish above their neighbours while Chelsea face a scramble to clinch the final Champions League place.
The fall from Champions League titans to Premier League also-rans has been a journey with many exclamation marks. But the contrast between the teams of 2007 and those that fought battle in 2013 is glaring.
Benitez and Mourinho were sculpting teams to become powerhouses both at home and across Europe. After a couple of years of planning, the structures of the teams were taking shape and the competition between the two clubs was fierce. A rivalry was being forged from frequent matches born from the growing success of both teams.
While Liverpool looked enviously at Mourinho and Chelsea’s Premier League dominance, Chelsea were equally piqued by Liverpool’s European pedigree and recent glory. The matches in the build up to that semi-final in 2007 were as much a war of wills and ideologies as they were a game of football. Something had to give; no one would anticipate that both teams would yield to new challengers.
Since that match, there have been some tremendous highlights. The following year, the two did combat once more in the semi-final with a dramatic second leg doing justice to the hype. A Didier Drogba punisher sealed the victory but not without Liverpool making a fiendish ending to the match by bagging a goal with just a couple of minutes to spare.
Not satisfied, the two were drawn again in the Champions League in 2009 doing battle this time in the quarter-finals. Another blockbuster saw Liverpool race to a 2-0 lead before fighting out a pulsating 4-4 draw with enough twists to give both sets of fans multiple cardiac arrests but seeing the Blues progress.
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A double triumph for Liverpool in the league that year felt like the two had switched roles, Liverpool becoming a stronger force domestically and Chelsea finally putting to bed Liverpool’s European hex over them.
2012 saw the teams face off in all the domestic competitions with the pinnacle being the FA Cup final just days before the two clashed again in the Premier League. Chelsea took the glory and went on to win the Champions League but like Liverpool’s win in 2005, this was not a polished all-conquering Chelsea team, it was a team that felt weaker than many of its German and Spanish rivals, not to mention the Manchester clubs.
And so after such fabled encounters, where fans were sick to death of seeing the other team in their way on the road to success, the two played football on Sunday. Chelsea out of the Champions League early this season, Liverpool with nothing left to play for and both looking neutered compared to their virility in recent years.
At lavish expense, both teams have constructed the squads which entertained on Sunday and the return is little. There is perhaps just one elite squad between the sides that faced off at the weekend when previously three could have been built from the personnel at the rival clubs.
The similar downward paths the teams have followed have even seen the hostility wane. Instead of vitriol and scorn being poured on the opposing fans, there was begrudging disdain for both teams. In fact, such have the tensions mellowed, the two clubs have now shared a manager. Had anyone suggested that Rafael Benitez would be leading the London club just four years ago, they would have faced serious probing into their sanity. Yet that fractious relationship has softened, though it is not healed.
There was no surprise that the manner in which the game was played epitomised the position of the two clubs as they are now. A drab first-half was lifted by an explosive second-half with the teams revealing that both still have fragments of greatness but are overall an impaired version of their previous incarnations. The two clubs looked like the transitional teams they are and played out a match of transitory quality.
And so it is with hope that this match should be viewed by both sets of supporters. Hope that in the near future these two will lock horns once more and prizes much greater than pride will be at stake.
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Apart from mis management at the top. The reason for Liverpools decline is simply picking poor managers
While Kenny was ok short term , the appointments of Hodgson and Rodgers were horrible errors , and has set us back years