UEFA hail Chelsea-Liverpool among 10 ´classics´

UEFA have included Chelsea’s thrilling 4-4 Champions League quarter-final draw with Liverpool in a list of 10 classic matches to have graced the competition.

Chelsea went into Tuesday’s second-leg game with a 3-1 lead from the away leg and hit back from 2-0 and 4-3 down to secure a 7-5 aggregate victory that sets up a semi-final meeting with in-form Spanish giants Barcelona.

Three more Liverpool matches feature on the UEFA list, published on their official website on Wednesday.

First up is the Reds’ dramatic 4-2 victory over fellow Premier League heavyweights Arsenal at the quarter-final stage of last season’s competition.

Liverpool led 2-1 with six minutes remaining and looked to be on course for the last four, before an incredible slaloming run from England winger Theo Walcott set up Emmanuel Adebayor for a goal that put Arsenal in front on the away goals rule.

With extra time beckoning, Steven Gerrard converted a penalty after substitute Ryan Babel had been brought down by Kolo Toure, with the Dutchman then firing home in added time to clinch Liverpool’s progress and a 5-3 aggregate win.

But the Merseysiders succumbed to an equally sensational defeat in the quarter-finals of the 2001-02 competition, when a late goal from Brazilian defender Lucio earned German side Bayer Leverkusen a 4-2 second-leg win that took them into the last four.

Liverpool’s most famous Champions League performance, however, came in the final of the 2005 competition in Istanbul.

Trailing 3-0 to Italy’s AC Milan at half-time, Rafael Benitez’s charges stormed back into the game in the second period, scoring three times to take the match to extra time and then clinching victory in the penalty shootout thanks to the heroics of Polish goalkeeper Jerzy Dudek.

Milan had been the victims of a similarly jaw-dropping comeback in the 2003-04 competition, which also features in UEFA’s list.

Having beaten Deportivo La Coruna 4-1 in the first leg of their quarter-final tie at the San Siro, the Rossoneri travelled to Depor’s Riazor stadium fully expecting to progress.

But the Spanish underdogs stunned them by racing into a 3-0 lead by half-time, with a late goal from Fran capping a remarkable and unprecedented turnaround.

Dramatic comebacks are unsurprisingly prominent on UEFA’s rundown, which features Monaco’s 3-1 quarter-final destruction of Real Madrid in 2004, in which a goal from Monaco’s Fernando Morientes, on loan from Real, helped dump his shell-shocked employers out of the competition.

Also included on the list are Barcelona’s 5-1 (6-4 aggregate) quarter-final victory over Chelsea in 2000 and Fenerbache’s 3-2 spotkick win against Sevilla in last season’s round of 16, after both legs had finished 3-2 to the home side.

Manchester United’s memorable 1999 triumph earns them two places in the list.

Inspired by Irish midfielder Roy Keane, Alex Ferguson’s men fought back from 2-0 down to beat Juventus 3-2 in Turin in the semi-finals, having scraped a 1-1 draw in the first leg at Old Trafford.

More drama was to follow in the final in Barcelona, when injury-time efforts from substitutes Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer secured a scarcely believable 2-1 triumph against Bayern Munich.