The Miracle of Istanbul: Liverpoool FC, from Paisley to Benitez - Softcover

Williams, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1845960831 ISBN 13: 9781845960834

Publisher: Mainstream Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

After 20 years off the major European football stage, Liverpool FC, under new Spanish manager Rafael Benitez, faced utter humiliation at half-time in the 2005 Champions League final in Istanbul. Three goals down to the brutally efficient and talented AC Milan, the inexperienced new Liverpool - an uneasy mix of local heroes, young Spaniards and soon-to-be-outcasts - was staring down the barrel of a possible record European Cup final defeat in front of 40,000 of its own fans and a global TV audience of hundreds of millions. That is until six extraordinary minutes of second-half carnage, allied to Red courage and resolve, changed the very course of European football history and mapped a new direction for the future of a club with a magnificent European past. "The Miracle of Istanbul" offers an insight into the many foreign highs and domestic lows of the amazing 2004-05 Liverpool season, as well as mapping out key connections between the great Liverpool European legacy of the 1970s and '80s and the new Benitez era - via a detour of the ultimately doomed Gerard Houllier period of initial Continental Liverpool management.It also looks at some of the key players of the recent successful European campaign - Gerrard, Hamman, Carragher and the erratic Jerzy Dudek among them - and at the music and football cultures in the city that have uniquely shaped what is still known locally as the Liverpool Way. The book compares the new Liverpool manager with his key rivals: his Iberian 'cousin' Jose Mourhino at Chelsea and the fiercely competitive David Moyes at neighbours Everton. But it ends - as it must - on that glorious night of 25 May in Istanbul, with fans' recollections and memories. It also asks: exactly what does the 2005 European triumph mean for the city of Liverpool and for the future direction of Liverpool football club under its modest but impressive new Spanish leadership?

About this title

Review

"Where John Williams and Stephen Hopkins score most freely, being profoundly committed fans as well as lucid writers, is in taking us back to Turkey to try to make sense of that ridiculous night on which Milan gave one of the finest performances in a European final for years. But you do not have to be a Liverpool fan to enjoy this book. Williams and Hopkins have produced an admirably thoughtful work in which every issue is considered." (The Sunday Telegraph)

"The Miracle of Istanbul retraces all the action from that great night and also examines the performances that led up to the finale. Thorough and concise to the last, it's a book anyone with more than a passing interest in Liverpool FC has to own." (Scotland on Sunday)

"'It has it all: the players, the manager, the fans. It's all here!" (Sport First)

"'Whether you are interested in Jack the Ripper or not, this is an excellent chronicle of life in Dundee during the late 1880s...The case of William Bury makes fascinating reading'." (Susan Bell Aberdeen Press & Journal)

"'This is an abridged history of the club since Bill Shankly and the story of a whole topsy-turvy season, as well as the tale of one improbable victory'." (Observer Sport Monthly)

About the Author

John Williams has written a number of books on football culture and is also the author of two books on Liverpool Football Club: Into the Red and The Liverpool Way.

Stephen Hopkins is a Kop season ticket holder and co-editor of Passing Rhythms: Liverpool FC and the Transformation of Football.

About this edition

• Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1845960831
• ISBN 13: 9781845960834
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240