The Chelsea/Liverpool rivalry of the 2000s was compelling, contrasting, fierce, and strewn with controversies.
Emerging from a dramatic change of circumstance for one club, and the improvement in fortunes of the other, it quickly usurped the Manchester United/Arsenal feud of the Nineties, bequeathing neutrals with a handful of truly unforgettable clashes in the process.
That is not to say of course that prior to the rivalry the clubs in question were the best of friends.
So much of the hostility post-Millennium derived from each club having distinctly different ideologies, with Chelsea the southern sophisticates and Liverpool forged in working class values, and this was true long before Jose Mourinho began to stir the pot and the biggest characters in each side went to war.
It should also be noted that from the Sixties on, the Blues identified as a big club whereas the Reds identified as the best club and whenever these two beliefs collide there is usually trouble. At the very least, there is ill-feeling.
All of which turned to overt hate when Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea lock, stock and oil barrel in 2003. It immediately made the Londoners the richest club in the world and somewhat inevitably it also made them very successful, winning league titles and domestic trophies aplenty.
Now the Stamford Bridge faithful could boast of being the best, as well as being big, and that blurred the lines, ending the clear delineation that had long existed between these geographically opposed clubs. And it’s fair to say that Liverpool didn’t like that very much.
Nor should they have, because though a league crown continued to elude the Merseysiders this was a decade that saw them established in the top four, challenging sporadically and winning an FA Cup here and a League Cup there.
Furthermore, this was a decade that had Steven Gerrard in his prime, not to mention Michael Owen and then Fernando Torres banging in the goals. When Rafa Benitez took charge in 2004 he moulded a collective unit that, more days than not, were a force to be reckoned with.
Meaning that when these sides met – on too many occasions to be retold here, with fate seemingly pitting them against one another every season in the Champions League, along with a litany of domestic semi-finals - it was Chelsea who were often favourites in the football odds but in reality, there wasn’t a lot in it.
Certainly the results back this up. Between April 2000 and October 2009, these battle-hardened enemies locked horns a remarkable 35 times. Chelsea won 16, Liverpool 11, while eight were drawn.
Yet numbers don’t do justice to the scale and drama of this rivalry. Their iconic Champions League semi-final in 2005 however does.
Just two months prior, Chelsea had beaten their arch foe 3-2 in a League Cup final, a game heightened more by having Mourinho sent off, shushing Liverpool fans with a finger to his lips as he left.
If that gesture provoked genuine ire the Blues’ aggressive chasing of Steven Gerrard’s signature around this time added further fuel to the fire. The future of the England star provided an intriguing back-story as each club prepared for one of the biggest fixtures in their respective histories.
The first leg, held at Stamford Bridge, finished 0-0. It was a game of attrition. It was a tight, suffocatingly tense contest that had two tactical grandmasters in Mourinho and Benitez cancel the other out.
The second leg was settled by a highly controversial goal. Of course it was. Bones of contention were the norm when the southern sophisticates clashed with the northern aristocracy.
Luis Garcia’s scuffed late effort clearly didn’t cross the line but it was given, nonetheless. Mourinho coined it the ‘ghost goal’. And Liverpool were off to Istanbul...
These two behemoths of English football remain rivals today, naturally enough, but unquestionably the intensity of their mutual loathing has passed. It went when Mourinho departed. It dissipated when John Terry and Gerrard retired.
There is still a geographical and ideological divide, but that is true of several Premier League clubs and the rivals they bristle up against.
For a while back there though it was unmissable, an all-engrossing orgy of malevolence, with pantomime villains to boot. That is gave us such classic matches is something we should all be grateful for.
*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to Alamy*
