The Top 10 football matches of the decade, as chosen by Martin Lipton

By Martin Lipton in Mirror Football Blog

Published 10:05 14/12/09

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As the first decade of the noughties comes to an end, we've tasked the Daily Mirror's chief football writer Martin Lipton to come up with his best matches of the last ten years.

10) Arsenal 4-4 Tottenham (Premier League, October 2008)
Harry Redknapp's second game in charge of Spurs and what a stunner. Bentley scored from 45 yards but it looked like normal service being resumed when the Gunners were 4-2 up with a minute to go. Then Jenas curled home a beauty and in stoppage time Modric's deflected shot hit the post and Lennon stabbed home the rebound. Cue bedlam!

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9) Italy 2-0 Germany (World Cup semi-final, July 2006)
One of the great World Cup semi-finals, played in one of Europe's great venues - Dortmund's Westfalenstadion. The attacking was constant from both sides but it was only as penalties - and the certainty of defeat to the Teutonic metronomes loomed - that Italy found the way through, to end the German party. Wonderful advert for football.

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8) Chelsea 4-4 Liverpool (Champions League quarter-final, April 2009)
All over after the first leg? I don't think so. Liverpool didn't either, despite the absence of Steven Gerrard, wiping out the two goal deficit to lead on away goals by the break, only for Chelsea to turn it on through Drogba, Alex and Lampard. Incredibly, Liverpool refused to die, going back in front on the night through Lucas and Kuyt and just one goal away from a remarkable feat before Lampard finally killed them off. Just amazing stuff.

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7) Manchester United 2-3 Real Madrid (April 2000)
Not the game that made Roman Abramovich fall in love with football, but the clash three years earlier, when holders United came back from the Bernabeu with a goalless draw and were played off the park by Fernando Redondo, who back-heeled through Henning Berg's legs before setting up Raul for the killer goal. Real were three up and cruising before they even let United see the ball. The shame was that Redondo barely played again, just 16 matches in four years at Milan after moving that summer after a career-ending knee problem. Desperate to see such talent wither away.

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6) Germany 1-5 England (World Cup qualifier, September 2001)
Payback time for all those heartbreaks, and then some. It looked like a familiar story when Germany went ahead but Owen equalised and went on to grab a sensational hat-trick, Gerrard got one and, as the fans still chant, "5-1, even Heskey scored". So good we all thought Sven was the real thing. Shame he wasn't. And, by the way, Germany got to the 2002 World Cup final.

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5) Manchester United 0-1 Arsenal (Premier League, May 2002)
There have been many titanic tussles between Fergie and Arsene Wenger but this was the most important, as the Gunners went to Old Trafford and completed the Double, despite being without Henry, Bergkamp and Adams. It was brutal at times, the tackles flying in with relentless ferocity, neither side willing to back down as United tried to take the race to the final weekend. But Freddie Ljungberg, irrepressible in the final three months, skipped through before Sylvain Wiltord slotted home the rebound. That it was my first "live" match report after joining the Mirror four days earlier made it even more enthralling.

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4) Manchester United 3-2 AC Milan (Champions League semi-final, May 2007)
This was what the Champions League was all about, two great teams throwing everything at each other, with no thought of playing for the second leg. Ronaldo and Rooney were outstanding for United, Kaka majestic for Milan but while United edged the match, they were blown off the park in the San Siro return.

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3) Croatia 1-4 England (World Cup qualifier, September 2008)
The first and astonishing sign that Fabio Capello could be the real thing. England had laboured to beat Andorra four days earlier but Don Fabio had a plan to exploit the space behind left-back Pranjic through Theo Walcott - and how. Walcott wrote his own England chapter while Rooney began his record-breaking qualifying goal run, and Croatia, so bullish and confident, were a broken side in the space of 90 minutes.

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2) Liverpool 3-3 AC Milan (Champions League final, May 2005)
The greatest European Cup final comeback and all the more remarkable because nobody, including Rafa Benitez and Carlo Ancelotti, really saw it coming. Thankfully nobody told Steven Gerrard that. Caused me more professional grief than any other game, because I'd decided to write the whole piece at 60 minutes, assuming a foregone conclusion. Three goals in six minutes by Liverpool changed all that and the denouement, with Dudek copying Grobbelaar's spaghetti legs to put Shevchenko off, was priceless.

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1) Liverpool 5-4 Alaves (Uefa Cup final, 2001)
Every substitution changed the shape of the match and it swung all ways and back again before an own goal won it for Gerard Houllier's side, sealing the most unlikely of Cup trebles after the penalty shoot-out League Cup win over Birmingham and Michael Owen's FA Cup final pick-pocketing of Arsenal. Both sets of fans were magnificent, as was the stadium in Dortmund. Just sensational.

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What were your favourite games of the decade? Let us know by leaving a comment below...

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