Sideline Cut: No one will ever truly work out how, but on Wednesday night in Istanbul, Liverpool Football Club managed to take possession of a football jewel that will glitter steadfastly through the remainder of this century. In one fell swoop they surely managed to win the hearts and souls of a generation of children eager for something to make them genuinely wide-eyed.

Wednesday night brought out the child in practically everybody who cares about sport, because the only comparable excitement dates back to the days when Santa paid courtesy calls. If you were a Liverpool fan watching that game, it was to feel touched by the hand of God. If you were a neutral observer, the game was merely absurdly gripping and fascinating. And if you happened to hate Liverpool, it was to realise that in the broad term, the game is done and dusted. There can be no reply.

It is hard to conceive any of the English power clubs will do anything in this lifetime to even touch upon the scale of imagination, bravery, good fortune and drama Liverpool and Milan conjured up on both sides of the Turkish witching hour. In a way, it is impossible to comprehend what more soccer itself can do to match the night of sport it conspired to produce. Given what has transpired, it would not be such a huge departure if the FA stuck a sign outside Lancaster Gate: All Future Seasons Cancelled.

The reason we watch sport, any sport, is not to see what probably should happen but to witness what maybe could happen. The adventure is the enticement. What the Liverpool-Milan classic has done is to set the bar at such an outlandish and previously unimaginable height that no future billing can hope to rival it. As a sporting occasion, Istanbul was untouchable and will surely remain so as soccer and sport speed heedlessly away from their traditions.

Whether Wednesday night was about Liverpool or Milan depends on nationality and affection and perspective. To that end, it was fascinating to behold the views of the RTÉ soccer panel - the trinity of John Giles, Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady - before, during and after the game. Proven soccer players, erudite men and - particularly Giles - shrewd and prescient readers of both the science and soul of their game, they nonetheless came across as ungracious.

All three clearly had the hots for Italian football and cooed like teenagers at a Westlife show, particularly whenever the cinematically handsome Paolo Maldini was mentioned. It was the great defender's football qualifications they dug, but still.

Dunphy did declare reservations about the fortitude of the Italian team but at half-time he purred along with the others about the magnificence of the continental game and the humiliation that surely awaited Liverpool.

And Milan were beautiful to behold during that first 45 minutes - particularly when compared to Liverpool's self-induced wretchedness. But the three wise men lost their grip on the game they have distinguished over the years. The most damning comment came from the eminent Giles, who was adamant Steven Gerrard had vanished - "disappeared" - yet again when his team and city cried out for leadership.

Only a shaman could have guessed Liverpool would recover three goals - particularly in a ridiculously compressed six-minute period. Nonetheless, a caveat was surely no more than the English team deserved, a word to the effect that however clumsy they looked amid the Italian craftsmen, the spirit of adventure that carried them to the final would not desert them.

For that was the point of the Champions League final to end them all. Rather than conquering Europe despite being a bunch of misfits, perhaps Liverpool won it precisely for that reason. If there is one lesson sport continually teaches it is that excellence and flair alone are not always enough to overcome true honesty.

So although the much-maligned Djimi Traore was turned inside out again and again by Andriy Shevchenko, he did not wilt. He tried his heart out, he played the willing fool. Although Jerzy Dudek fumbled and blundered his way through most of the night, he had the heart and spirit to not only repel the Ukrainian striker's shot late in injury-time but to try to throw himself at the rebound as well. It was a miracle save, a blessed intervention for Liverpool people, but Dudek made it happen. When Dietmar Hamann, the ageing veteran, was thrown into a thankless situation, 0-3 down at half-time, he did not sulk. He stepped up to the demands of Rafa Benitez.

And as Liverpool gleefully pick-pocketed a way back into contention in that street-urchin style of theirs, the questions were screaming out about the Italian side.

Where was the great Maldini leadership at that crucial hour? Where were Kaka's visionary passes when the contest was on the line? If the humiliation of Liverpool was nothing more than a formality, like the matador's final thrust of the sword, why did it not happen? You could argue that the Italian team sensed - as so many people did - that Liverpool were motoring along on some sort of clairvoyant impulse and that the were spookily unbeatable.

Certainly, the wildly dramatic reversal of fortunes suggested some kind of input from the Unseen. But more practically, Milan probably sniffed the desperation of a bunch of men who knew they might never return to this stage, a team locked into the conviction that their sporting lives started and finished at this point.

Maldini, an aristocrat born to grace the eminent occasions of world soccer, could never narrow his vision to such an intense hour of introspection. Sami Hyypia could. The heroic Jamie Carragher, thundering on through cramp, could. The half-daft Djibril Cisse could. And Gerrard could.

From where I was watching, Gerrard won that European Cup final almost on his own. It was not the matter of scoring the first goal and winning the penalty from which Xabi Alonso equalised but the fact he underwent a magnification in terms of influence and bravery while other big reputations shrank. Disappeared.

One majestic tackle on Serginho as he careered down the left flank late in extra time. Beneath the din you might have heard the sound of Milan buckling then. But the failure of the RTÉ panel to recognise the greatness of his contribution - to admit they called it terribly wrong - was as churlish and small as it was inconceivable.

The Gerrard debate ended on Wednesday night. The jury is gone home. Torn between staying with or leaving Liverpool to pursue his obligation to "win things", Gerrard has just won The Thing. The ultimate Scouser has captained and inspired Liverpool to a European title that has instantly gone platinum and evoked comparisons to the greatest games of the last half-century.

Nothing he does for the rest of his career can surpass that moment. He could flit from Milan to Manchester to Chelsea and Madrid for the next four seasons without even coming close to a final because a competition like the Champions League is about a state of mind as much as anything else. It is about being at the right place at the right time.

That just happened to be Anfield in 2005 for Benitez's oddball collection of players. Liverpool are 28 to 1 to win it next season - if they even get in - and chances are they will be gunned down in the last 16. But that doesn't matter. Gerrard's vagabonds won the European final that will never be matched. Somehow, after a 20-year absence, the Scousers have managed to trump the best of England all over again. How they must seethe up the road in Manchester.

It isn't all bad for the Mancs, though. At least they can console themselves with having the best rock band of all time.