Incredible achievement belongs to Benitez

Soccer analyst: Fantastic. And ever so slightly unbelievable.

I just think back to December at Anfield: Liverpool 2-0 down, on aggregate, to Olympiakos after 25 minutes or so, on the way out at the group stage of the Champions League. What odds would you have got at that point for them to go on to reach the final? Any odds you would have liked. But they got a goal back, then another, then Stevie Gerrard got the winner with four minutes to go. And now? Incredible.

Even the most myopic of Liverpool supporters wouldn't have predicted this. This, after all, is the team which have lost 10 away games in the Premiership this season, scoring only once in all those defeats. And a team which are seriously struggling to qualify for next season's Champions League.

What Rafa Benitez has is a Jekyll and Hyde team, one that have reached the Champions League final, and another that are ordinary, at best, in the league. Amazing.

But in many ways, as he has said himself, Benitez sends out a team more suited to Champions League football, with the way they are set up. And Chelsea, over 180 minutes, just could not find a way through them.

Chelsea, it has to be said, were unfortunate to be without Damien Duff, for all of the game, and a fully fit Arjen Robben for most of it. They are the players who provide them with the width, the creativity, the spark; without them they struggle to break down teams that defend in numbers, defend deep and defend well.

There really was no supply for Didier Drogba all night and Drogba without supply . . . well, he may as well have been sitting in the studio with us at TV3, for all he was worth.

It took Chelsea 66 minutes to warm the Liverpool goalkeeper's hands, with that Frank Lampard effort, so that really tells much of the story of the game.

They prefer teams to come on to them, to soak up the pressure and break, that's when they're most effective, but once Liverpool got the goal Chelsea were forced to play a game they're not particularly comfortable with.

Chelsea had no width and the centre of midfield is where Liverpool are strongest, you know how they're going to be set up: Dietmar Hamann and Igor Biscan sat in front of the back four, they want you coming at them through the middle. Frank Lampard just couldn't find a way through.

Chelsea had the ball for almost all of the second half, but really the sum total of their efforts, until Eidur Gudjohnsen's last-minute chance, was that Lampard shot.

Where was Joe Cole playing? Where was Gudjonssen playing? Drogba? He wasn't in it. In many ways the myth of the Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho, was exposed last night for what it is: a myth. He really had no answers. This was Rafa Benitez's night.

Bringing on Robert Huth to play up front? Bringing Mateja Kezman on and playing him out of position? Playing Gudjonssen out of position? None of it worked, there was a complete lack of ideas, and while you have to concede they were desperately unlucky to be without Duff and a fully fit Robben they just couldn't do it when they were required to chase a game, one of the few times they've had to do it all season.

The goal? Well, it was a fantastic ball from Stevie Gerrard, outside of the right foot, and Milan Barros did well after that. But was it in or was it not? We'll never, ever know.

But if you are the referee's assistant, and he was the man who gave the goal, you have to be absolutely 100 per cent sure - and I don't think he could have been.

But that counts for nothing now, the goal was given and that's that: Liverpool are in the Champions League final.

Fantastic is the only word for it.

Apart from - incredible!