Graphic: The road to Athens

Asked for an insight into his tactics yesterday, Rafael Benítez stonewalled with a bad joke. “How do I know you are not Carlo Ancelotti?” he asked, and he maintained that straight-batted defence whether the questions were in English, Italian or Japanese.

As ever, the Liverpool manager was giving little away, despite the fascination with discovering how he has guided Liverpool to a second Champions League final in three seasons. “A cup team” was how José Mourinho described them recently, but how the Chelsea manager – and Sir Alex Ferguson – long for that sort of record in Europe’s premier club competition.

How they crave to get their hands on those big silver ears; Mourinho to satisfy his demanding boss and Ferguson to fill the one hole that remains – a second European Cup. They secured other prizes this season, and the Barclays Premiership title was hugely satisfying for Manchester United, but the sound of crowing from Anfield if Liverpool win this evening will be deafening. “We won it six times” will float from Athens to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge.

Expert View

Liverpool will win if they use two strikers and go for the jugular

Tony Cascarino

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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

• Why the gods will smile on Liverpool only as underdogs

• Benítez puts his faith in pair of ‘rejects’

• Liverpool supporters foot large bill for Athens

Multimedia

• Gerrard v Gattuso

• Controlling Kaka

And it is a tribute to Benítez that Ferguson and Mourinho would not bet against the Spaniard joining Brian Clough and Bob Paisley this evening in the pantheon of managers who have won the European Cup twice with English clubs.

AC Milan are the logical favourites, given how they embarrassed United in the semi-final, second leg, but the lesson has been learnt (painfully by some of us) not to write off Liverpool under BenÍtez. He can be maddeningly inscrutable – even his players complain of that – and he is no champion of aesthetic football, but he has a sharp understanding of the game, of tactics and of team-building. Not that he was sharing his methods yesterday, or his starting XI.

A familiar secrecy surrounded his selection last night, but it appears that he will deliver a surprise again. Jermaine Pennant could start on the right wing, which would be as startling as his choice of Harry Kewell in Istanbul in 2005.

Many of Milan’s players will be running out in their third Champions League final in five years, but while they have the stature, the class and the moti-vation to avenge their previous defeat, they will know that Liverpool will be dogged and organised under Benítez.

The Spaniard is a hard taskmaster. At the party to celebrate Liverpool’s FA Cup Final victory last year, he famously castigated Steven Gerrard, the captain and two-goal hero, for falling two short of 25 goals for the season. “Small details,” is Benítez’s mantra on the training field.

In the moments before they walk into the Olympic Stadium in Athens this evening, BenÍtez will not be seeking to make a grand speech but reminding his players of their tactical duties. “They do not need to be looking for the play of their lives, dribbling the ball out of their own area,” he said. “This is not the time to change things.”

He still has his written notes from Istanbul, although after studying Milan’s past ten matches, he believes that this final has different requirements. “The difference in Milan is not so much the personnel but the way they play,” he said. “Two years ago it was [An-driy] Shevchenko and [Hernán] Crespo. Now it is one up and the two or three players between the lines.

“Kaká is one of those and he is a very important part of their attack. But we mustn’t allow ourselves to become obsessed by him. There are others who are equally dangerous, like [Clarence] Seedorf, who arrive in your box at the key moment.” The Spaniard is expected to try to smother Milan with a five-man midfield.

Benítez was reminded yesterday that, in Istanbul, he had predicted that the final would be decided by the odd goal. “Don’t rely on me,” he said, and predictions seem equally dangerous this evening.

He suggested that playing for penalties was impossible, although he would not mind if it came to that because, in José Manuel Reina, he has a goalkeeper who relishes shoot-outs, while Milan would surely be haunted by memories of two years ago. “To have a good goalkeeper is decisive in a shoot-out,” Benítez said. “We have one and in that regard we are calm.”

He will take victory any way it comes and it would be no fluke. Mourinho may have intended to disparage, but BenÍtez has rewritten the idea of what it means to be a cup team. The term normally refers to a team who blow hot and cold, but as triumphs over Juventus, Barcelona and Chelsea (twice) in the past few years have demonstrated, the Spaniard has proved that you can target this competition.

Ferguson, who strives to reach his second Champions League final in two decades of trying, acknowledged that Benítez had prioritised and juggled his resources superbly. “Sometimes in athletics you can prepare for one tournament a year and an athlete can sometimes focus preparations on one event,” Ferguson said. “I think Rafa made his mind up in January that he was not going to win the league and it helped being knocked out of the FA Cup in the third round.

“That made their target very simple and they have prepared tactically very well. It requires patience from everyone, the fans downwards. It requires the courage to do it.”

It also requires skill to pull it off. It requires a man as canny as BenÍtez. And he may need to be at his canniest this evening.

Countdown

63,000 The capacity of the Olympic Stadium this evening – Liverpool and AC Milan have been given 17,000 tickets each

16 The tickets each club have been allocated for their disabled supporters

5 Paolo Maldini is one of only five players to have made more than 100 Champions League appearances. Raúl, Roberto Carlos, David Beckham and Oliver Kahn are the others

1 Milan is the only city to have won the final with two teams, AC Milan and Inter Milan

3 The clubs who have used the Olympic Stadium as their home ground – Olympiacos, Panathinaikos and AEK Athens