Carlo Ancelotti has lost count of the number of occasions that he has been asked if AC Milan’s agonising defeat by Liverpool in Istanbul has left a permanent psychological scar on his players as they prepare to face the same opponents in the Champions League final for the second time in three seasons.

His answer, though, is always the same. “When a team has come through the problems this one has faced over the last 12 months, nothing bothers you,” the Milan coach said. “Mentally you become so strong.”

Just as Liverpool thrived in the face of adversity on that heady night in the Turkish capital in 2005, when they overhauled a three-goal deficit before beating Milan on penalties, so the Italians have responded with remarkable resilience to the match-fixing scandal that threatened to thrust one of European football’s greatest clubs into a state of limbo. Like the Italy team, who went on to win the World Cup last summer, so Milan have confounded all expectations to reach their third Champions League final in five years.

It is why Ancelotti believes that his team, who started the Serie A season with an eight-point deduction, would be the most deserving of winners at the Olympic Stadium in Athens this evening. “Milan deserved to get to the final because of what happened with the docking of points and things and now we are here I think we will win,” he said. “We didn’t have time to properly prepare for the season, so what we have achieved means a lot. There is a real conviction in the team and we want to finish the job.”

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I had a fancy for Liverpool, but when I got to Athens I began to have my doubts

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BACKGROUND

• Debate: how can Liverpool beat Milan?

• Gerrard calls for heroes to make history

• Two clubs united by darkest days in history

• Istanbul has not scarred us

• The writing’s on the banner

Multimedia

• Athens audiocasts

• Rafael Benitez podcast

• Songs of The Kop

Related Links

• Italian media focused only on revenge

If they do so, it may be without the support of many of their fans. About 7,000 Milan supporters were stranded at Italy’s main airports last night as strikes grounded almost 400 flights. One person certain to be in the crowd, however, is Andriy Shevchenko, the Chelsea forward, who has been invited to the match as a guest of Milan, even though the Ukraine player’s management company insisted that nothing should be read into that.

It was Shevchenko’s missed penalty that handed Liverpool victory in Istanbul and Milan have been practising hard from 12 yards, perhaps in the knowledge that José Manuel Reina, the semi-final hero for Liverpool against Chelsea this season, is more formidable between the posts than Jerzy Dudek, Milan’s nemesis from two years ago. “Our players have trained specifically for penalties,” Silvio Berlusconi, the Milan president, said. “They have even done so against ‘dancing’ [moving] goal-keepers.”

However, Ancelotti is confident that the match will not go to penalties if Milan play as well as they did in the first half in Istanbul, or against Manches-ter United in the semi-final, second leg at the San Siro.

“If we play as we did in Istanbul, or against United at the San Siro, this time we will win,” he said. “The team two years ago was stronger than this one, but this one is more motivated about winning this final.”

News that Paolo Maldini has overcome a knee problem to take his place in central defence alongside Alessandro Nesta has proved a fillip for Milan and the 38-year-old defender is relishing the prospect of playing in his eighth European Cup final, equalling Francisco Gento’s record.