The former AC Milan defender recalled his experience losing to Liverpool in the 2005 Champions League final
“For us [Liverpool], it was unbelievable [coming back against AC Milan to win the Champions League]. Everywhere you go, people still talk about that. I’m always fascinated by the other side of the story because [Stam] named the players that he was going to play with, and when you actually look at that team—that photo—before the final, you’re almost looking at their team, thinking that’s one of the best teams, not just of that era, but ever.
“Cafu is one of the best right backs ever. Paolo Maldini, one of the best ever. The midfielder won the World Cup the year later. [Andriy] Shevchenko was the best player in the world at that time. Kaka was about to become the best player, so it’s unbelievable, and we were a bang average team.”
But Stam was quick to reply: “I think that’s how Liverpool fans, or our fans, are approaching the story, and maybe we thought Liverpool was a weaker side or had weaker players, but that’s not how we approached that game [the Champions League final]. We approached that game very professionally, as you might think with all the players on that team.
“All of them know exactly what can happen in football so if you are a young player and you’re looking at team sheets, then you can think, ‘Okay, we’re going to beat them’. But an experienced player who’s been playing so many years at top-level football is not going to go into a game and underestimate the opposition. In our meetings with the manager, Carlo [Ancelotti], we never did that, not even during the final.
The Dutchman, who was 32 at the time of the 2005 final and had already gained the experience of winning the trophy once in his career with Manchester United, then went on to address the rumour that has spread over the years that followed of AC Milan players celebrating their lead at half-time.
He added, “There’s been talk that really disturbs me—at halftime, people are saying that we were already celebrating and stuff like that. Can you imagine players of this level going into a dressing room and, even at 3-0 up, thinking about how we’re going to celebrate?
“Ancelotti made this remark as well; he said, ‘if we can score three in 45 minutes, the opposition can as well, so we need to be careful, we need to keep going and be strong, so they don’t score because if they score one—and it happened—the confidence is getting back in that team’.
“When [Liverpool] scored the first one, the organisation in our team was gone; there was confusion and eventually, you scored three in six minutes.”
Carragher responded: “I didn’t need to be in [AC Milan’s] dressing room to know [how professional they would have been at halftime during the Champions League final]. [Paolo] Maldini is in there, as is [Carlo] Ancelotti, some of the greatest players of all time.
“It was a freak what happened in that game, but it was just a story that got said flippantly after the game and they [the papers] were selling it. I thought that was really disrespectful to the players [AC Milan] had in their dressing room.”
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