Liverpool vs Olympiakos: Champions League group stage, December 2004
Although this was a group stage game, its significance was huge. Liverpool were grouped with Monaco, Olympiacos and Deportivo La Coruna. They were hosting Olympiakos at Anfield and Deportivo were hosting Monaco on the final match day. The group tables looked like this at this point:
Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
Olympiacos | 5 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
Monaco | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 9 |
Liverpool | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 7 |
Deportivo | 5 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 4 | -4 | 2 |
For Liverpool to reach the knockout stage they had to win their game at all costs. If Monaco lost their game against Deportivo, then Liverpool just needed a win. However, Deportivo were winless after five games and had scored zero goals in those games, so the Reds couldn’t count on them winning against Monaco. So the only other possibility was winning the game against Olympiakos and Liverpool needed to do it by a two-goal margin to qualify at the expense of the Greek side on head to head.
The game didn’t go according to the script for Liverpool as Olympiakos took the lead against the run of play in the 26th minute through Rivaldo. A below-par Liverpool side toiled hard and put two past Olympiakos courtesy of Pongole and Mellor.
In the 86th minute, Neil Mellor headed down a ball into the path of Steven Gerrard who was lurking outside the penalty box. Gerrard drove a first touch low volley into the Olympiakos net which made commentator, Andy Gray - a former Evertonian, produce a memorable commentary to go with the goal.
