Liverpool supporters of every age are fortunate to have Champions League or European Cup final memories and Rafa Benitez shared his thoughts on one of the lesser spoken about matches, against AC Milan in Athens.
Speaking on the ‘We are Liverpool’ podcast, the Spaniard explained why the Reds lost in 2007: “In Athens, we lost because I changed Mascherano for Crouch. Not because of [playing Crouch] but because we left a gap, Mascherano was in the position where normally there is a second striker is around but we lost this control and then they [AC Milan] play behind the defenders and Inzaghi scores [the second goal]…
“Some people say to me: ‘Why didn’t you play a striker and you brought on a full-back in the last few minutes in Athens?’ – because we were attacking and they were deep, we had to make crosses to regain the ball, not put more people there [in the box]”.
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This may not come as welcome news to Peter Crouch who has seemingly been pointed out here as a man who was at fault for our defeat but it’s obvious that the 62-year-old is blaming himself for making a more offensive change.
Many wanted our side to have been more attacking in the game but these two reasons mentioned by our former manager show that he clearly doesn’t agree with that opinion.
You can watch Benitez’s thoughts on Athens (from 32:48) via Liverpool FC on YouTube:
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