Former Liverpool assistant boss Pako Ayestaran has attributed the Reds' legendary Champions League win of 2005 down to the mental strength amongst the squad.
Ayestaran was beside then manager Rafa Benitez on the bench in the Ataturk Stadium in Istanbul, watching on as his side went in 3-0 down to AC Milan at the half-time interval.
Three goals in six second-half minutes saw the Reds remarkably restore parity against the Italian giants, before they went on to beat them on penalties to lift their fifth European Cup.
And Ayestaran feels such an "emotional" achievement was down to the sheer strength of the characters in the squad at the time.
He told the Independent: "I was watching from the Liverpool bench as assistant manager, and you would have similarly thought that the Milan players - with Paolo Maldini, with Clarence Seedorf - would have had too much mental strength as well.
"They were so far ahead of us, and we looked ready to collapse at 3-0 down. By half-time in Istanbul in 2005, there was a clear pattern to what Milan were doing, so we made small changes to the line-up - bringing Didi Hamann on to suppress Kaka’s freedom.
"With that different positioning of the players, we knew we could score an early goal. Steven Gerrard did that. And, the second that we scored, we could feel the Milan players were shocked; that anything could happen; and that we could come back.
"The key to that comeback was a mix of the tactical and the mental. Or, rather, the changes had a tactical effect, and that then had a more profound mental effect.
"When you see huge swings in games like that, it is rarely tactical in truth. It is emotional. It’s about how you digest those shifts in games. You have to be mentally ready for any scenario."
Ayestaran joined the Reds alongside Benitez in the summer of 2004, and was part of the squads that won the Champions League and the FA Cup 12 months later before leaving the club in 2007.
