As Manchester City and Chelsea prepare to lock horns in the 2021 Champions League final on Saturday, we take a look back at five classic encounters in the showpiece event on the European football calendar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Where else to start than with the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’ as Liverpool came back from 3-0 down to beat AC Milan in a nail-biting penalty shootout.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Serie A giants looked to be cruising their way to the trophy in Turkey, when Paolo Maldini struck in the first minute, before a brace from Hernan Crespo landed ahead of the half-time whistle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reds’ skipper Steven Gerrard inspired a remarkable comeback as he scored a header to cut the deficit, before goals from Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso saw the game finish all square.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keeper Jerzy Dudek produced an astonishing double save to deny Andriy Shevchenko from the penalty in extra-time, and again saved the Ukrainian’s effort in the resulting penalty shootout to see Liverpool crowned champions of Europe once again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Another English European success was enjoyed just before the turn of the millennia, as Manchester United came from behind to beat Bayern Munich in the 1999 final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The majority of the game was far from a classic, as it looked like Mario Basler’s goal was to give the Bavarian giants a 1-0 win in Barcelona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All the drama was packed into ‘Fergie Time’ as Sir Alex Ferguson’s side stuck with two injury-time goals from Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to secure an historic treble that season for the Red Devils.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
A modern classic was witnessed seven years ago as Real Madrid added a 10th European title to the collection by beating city rivals Atletico Madrid in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Atleti thought they might have edged out the win in the dying minutes of the 90, with Diego Godin’s goal set to prove the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Sergio Ramos struck in the last minutes to take the game into extra-time, where Real blew their opponents away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gareth Bale, Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo all got on the scoresheet to break Atletico hearts and also secure the cherished ‘La Decima’ for Los Blancos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
One of the biggest upsets in a final came back in this 90s classic as AC Milan thrashed Barcelona in the 94 showpiece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many expected Johan Cruyff’s Barca to come out on top in this one, against a Milan side that were missing the likes of Alessandro Costacurta, Franco Baresi and Marco van Basten through injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A remarkable team performance for the Rossoneri won the day, as goals from Daniele Massaro (2), Dejan Savicevic and Marcel Desailly saw Barca’s hopes of a European title come crashing down in Athens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Last but not least, another upset was witnessed in 1997 as Borussia Dortmund shocked the footballing world with a 3-1 win over Juventus in the final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BVB managed to neutralise Juve’s attacking stars, with the likes of Zinedine Zidane and Christian Vieri unable to impact the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Scotland’s Paul Lambert played a dogged starring role to keep Zidane quiet in the midfield, while a brace from Karl-Heinz Riedle and an effort from Lars Ricken secured the unlikely win for the underdogs in Munich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Manchester City are *All odds correct at time of writing<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As Manchester City and Chelsea prepare to lock horns in the 2021 Champions League final on Saturday, we take a look back at five classic encounters in the showpiece event on the European football calendar. AC Milan 3-3 (2-3 Penalties) Liverpool: 2005 Where else to start than with the ‘Miracle of Istanbul’ as Liverpool came […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":39465,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212],"tags":[559,239,233],"class_list":["post-20584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-champions-league","tag-a-c-milan","tag-liverpool","tag-manchester-united"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20584"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39871,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20584\/revisions\/39871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mansionbet.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}20\/23<\/code> to win on Saturday as they seek to be crowned European champions for the first time in their history on Saturday, Chelsea are 17\/5<\/code> to win and a draw is 51\/20<\/code>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n