Best ever UEFA Champions League finals

The Allianz Arena in Munich will welcome Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan on Saturday 31st May for a UEFA Champions League final that has all the ingredients to be a classic.

Inter reached the final after winning a semi-final epic against Barcelona while PSG, the scourge of the Premier League, have also turned on the style in making it to Munich.

The prospect of a final to remember is very real indeed, but will it match up to these classics?

Best ever UEFA Champions League finals

2005: AC Milan 3-3 Liverpool (Liverpool won 3-2 on penalties)

Not many finals, in any competition, get tag lines, but the climax of the 2005 UEFA Champions League certainly did - this was the game that will always be known as ‘The Miracle of Istanbul’.

Carlo Ancelotti's mighty AC Milan and Rafael Benitez's Liverpool underdogs delivered arguably the greatest ever UEFA Champions League final on the night of 25th May 2005 at the Ataturk Stadium - yet for a half it had looked like it was going down as one of the more forgettable.

Liverpool fans were silenced inside 60 seconds when Paolo Maldini fired the Italian champions in front and many were heading for the exits after Hernan Crespo added two more before half-time. Milan were in cruise control.

But then came the turnaround - a stunning, breathless six-minute period early in the second half in which Liverpool scored three times through Steven Gerrard, Vladimir Smicer and Xabi Alonso to turn the tie on its head.

The match went to extra time, then penalties where Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek was the hero, saving from Andrea Pirlo and Andriy Shevchenko, as the Reds completed the miracle.

2018: Real Madrid 3-1 Liverpool

Zinedine Zidane had scored one of the greatest goals in a UEFA Champions League final in 2002 and was on the touchline in May 2018 to witness another.

Zidane's Real Madrid and Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool took centre stage in 2018 in Kyiv, a match that was level at 1-1 with 61 minutes on the clock with little between the sides.

And then Zidane brought on Gareth Bale.

Just two minutes after coming off the bench, Bale produced one of the great UEFA Champions League goals, a spectacular acrobatic volley which drew comparisons with the goal his manager, Zidane, had scored for Los Blancos against Bayer Leverkusen 16 years before.

Bale would go on to claim a second - the only substitute to score twice in a UEFA Champions League final - as Real won a 13th overall title.

2014: Real Madrid 4-1 Atletico Madrid AET

The Spanish capital decamped to Lisbon for the second all-Spanish final and an absolute heartbreaker for Atletico Madrid.

Real had been the better team firing off twice as many shots but that was no solace for Diego Simeone and Atletico, who had the trophy snatched from their grasp.

Atletico had gone ahead in the 36th minute through centre-back Diego Godin and preserved that lead until the third minute of second-half injury time when, with the Atleti bench ready to swarm the pitch, Sergio Ramos shattered their night with a last-gasp headed equaliser.

Utterly deflated, Atletico went to pieces in extra time with goals from Bale, Marcelo and Cristiano Ronaldo just adding to their misery.

1999: Manchester United 2-1 Bayern Munich 

The UEFA Champions League trophy was sporting ribbons in the colours of Bayern Munich as then UEFA president Lennart Johansson prepared to take it pitchside for the presentations.

After all, three minutes of injury time had gone up on the board and the German giants were still ahead through Mario Basler's strike.

But then came the twist - and what a twist. Thirty-six seconds into injury time Teddy Sheringham equalised for Manchester United and then 46 seconds before the three minutes were up Ole Gunnar Solskjaer snatched the winner.

A major final had never had an ending quite like it with Sir Alex Ferguson's treble winners jubilant, meanwhile, Bayern were on their knees.

1994: AC Milan 4-0 Barcelona 

AC Milan had laboured to the final, failing to win four of their six group games, yet turned on the style against favourites Barcelona with a performance hailed as "perfection" by their boss Fabio Capello.

That they achieved such heights was even more immense given Marco van Basten and Gianluigi Lentini were injured and Franco Baresi and Alessandro Costacurta suspended. Yet the Italians were an absolute joy.

Daniele Massaro scored a first-half brace, Dejan Savicevic and Marcel Desailly added further goals after the break, as Johan Cruyff's mighty Barca were torn apart.

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