5) Gianfranco Zola sparks Chelsea fight back
Chelsea 4-2 Liverpool (January 1997)
In 1997 Chelsea had only won one FA Cup in their history, back in 1970, and so when they went into half-time 2-0 down to Liverpool in the fourth round of the competition fans could be forgiven for assuming this wasn’t going to be their year.
But after substitute Mark Hughes pulled one back Gianfranco Zola scored an absolute screamer in the 58th minute to pull Chelsea level. The Italian, who moved to England four months earlier, had only scored six goals for his new club before thrashing the ball home from the edge of the D in the FA Cup.
Zola went on to score two more in the competition and Ruud Gullit’s side went on to lift the trophy, with that Liverpool win the defining fixture on their road to Wembley.
4) Jesper Gronkjaer secures Champions League football
Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool (May 2003)
Arguably the most important match in the history of Chelsea Football Club, if the rumours are to be believed, was their 2-1 victory over Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on the final day of the 2002/03 season. Level on points before the game, Chelsea needed a draw to secure the fourth and final Champion League qualification spot – and win the heart of Roman Abramovich, who bought the club six weeks later.
Speaking to the Guardian in 2011, the scorer of the winning goal Jesper Gronkjaer said "we all knew what we'd been playing for that afternoon. I don't know whether Abramovich would have bought Chelsea without my goal but the Champions League certainly made the club far more attractive. That is sure.”
The historic moment came in the 26th minute, with the Denmark international cutting inside John Arne Riise and firing as he fell into the far corner of the net.
3) Petr Cech’s unbelievable FA Cup final save
Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool (May 2012)
In the final few minutes of the 2012 FA Cup final Liverpool were pushing desperately for the equaliser and it felt only a matter of time before they got back into the game. So when Luis Suarez clipped the ball to the back post and Andy Carroll rose highest the goal seemed certain.
But Petr Cech had other ideas. The Chelsea goalkeeper somehow stretched to the claw the ball off the line and onto the crossbar, denying Carroll his moment. Two weeks later and still high from the finale at Wembley Roberto di Matteo’s side lifted the Champions League trophy.
2) Luis Garcia’s “ghost goal”
Liverpool 1-0 Chelsea (May 2005)
Jose Mourinho will never forget Luis Garcia’s third-minute goal at Anfield in the second leg of the Champions League semi-final, and neither will the Liverpool fans there to witness it. After a tense and nervous 0-0 in the first leg – a scoreline that would come to define Mourinho v Benitez battles down the years – the return in Liverpool was sealed with a goal that we still aren’t sure about.
William Gallas appeared to have cleared the ball off the line after Garcia flicked it from the edge of the six-yard box, but the assistant referee flagged and the goal was given. Mourinho never won the competition with Chelsea – and the goal that (probably) never was still haunts him.
1) Steven Gerrard’s slip
Liverpool 0-2 Chelsea (April 2014)
After 11 consecutive victories Brendan Rodgers’ Liverpool only needed to draw at home to Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea to maintain control over the Premier League title race. A trip to Crystal Palace and a home tie against Newcastle United were easy fixtures to end the season – which made Steven Gerrard’s mistake all the more traumatising.
“This does not slip now!” was the skipper’s ironic rallying cry to his team-mates following their 3-2 victory over Manchester City a fortnight previously at Anfield, and yet it was the Liverpool captain who made the crucial error that let their title rivals move into first.
In truth, he actually made two mistakes. The first was letting the ball slide underneath his foot and the second was the slip itself, without which he might have put Demba Ba under enough pressure to avoid catastrophe.
