This week, football has improvised the perfect movie script, full of fight, heart, desire, determination, tears of anguish, tears of joy, unsung heroes taking centre stage and the impossible becoming possible. This movie is a true story that ended with two English teams reaching the Champions League final, proving that maybe the Premier League is the best in the world after all.
Now it goes into its final weekend with Manchester City one apparently inevitable win from the title while just behind them Liverpool, after Tuesday night’s miracle at Anfield, can make up for any domestic disappointment at the Champions League final in Madrid next month. With City determined one day to complete their transformation under Sheikh Mansour with victory in Europe’s top club competition and Liverpool desperately seeking their first league title for 29 years, I suspect that if the two teams had been offered their choice of either of those positions at the start of the season, City would immediately have taken Liverpool’s and the Reds would have delightedly snatched City’s.
Related: Belief fuels era of remarkable Champions League comebacks | Jonathan Wilson
24 May 2000: Real Madrid 3-0 Valencia The first intra-national European Cup final in the competitions's 45-year history acted as the stage for Steve McManaman to write his name into Champions League folklore. The Englishman secured victory for Real in Paris with a stunning 67th-minute volley, with Fernando Morientes and Raúl scoring the others.
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