There is no geographical or historical reason why Liverpool and Chelsea should have an aversion to each other, but for a while in the 2000s their rivalry was one of the most entertaining in English football.
Luis Garcia's 'Ghost Goal' in the Semi-Final of Champions League 2005 remains the most memorable and controversial moment of what changed to one of the most charged matches in English football.
The contrast between the fortunes of the two clubs at that time was particularly striking. Although they are a working man, Liverpool was part of the traditional aristocracy of English football, while Chelsea was up to the up, funded by the new money from Roman Abramovich.
Like Frank Lampard said in an interview with Jamie Carragher for the Daily Mail: “We were the new children in the block who had a few pounds and drew a load of players. Jose puffed his chest out and then we continued to play. It was a collision of two ideals.”
In Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho, two managers were in charge of both looking for their mark in England. Both astute tactics, the battle in the dugout was just as fierce as the one on the field.
All these factors combined to ensure that the collisions between two sides were always fascinating, always competitive and always dramatic.
One of the first significant collisions between the two teams actually dates from both Benitez and Mourinho.
On the last day of the 2002-03 season, Gerard Houllier Reds Claudio Ranieri's Blues visited in what was essentially a straight shooting for fourth place and Champions League qualification.
The meaning of Chelsea's victory that day cannot be overestimated. A month later, Abramovich completed his takeover of the blues, but it could have been very different.
“Had Liverpool won on that spring day, who knows what could have happened?” Mark Fleming wrote in the Independent in 2011.
“Abramovich would almost certainly have brought his rubles somewhere else, and Chelsea could have had a similar fate as Leeds, or possibly worse, because they were confronted with financial forgotment at that time.”
By 2005 Mourinho and Benitez had arrived and Chelsea was relentless in their attempts to settle as the team to beat in England.
Mourinho's first trophy in Chelsea came over Liverpool in the League Cup final. Given the drama of what followed between the two teams, it was a suitable turbulent meeting.
John Arne Riise gave Liverpool the lead after just a minute, but Chelsea triumphed 3-2 after extra time, with Steven Gerrard scored his own goal with only 11 minutes left of the original 90 minutes.
Undoubtedly the most notorious moment of rivalry. Undoubtedly the moment when the fixture became slightly more than just two of the best clubs in the country with which was abandoned.
The fact that Mourinho is still complaining about the controversial effort of Luis Garcia – so that Liverpool reached the Champions League final to this day – says it all. Just like Garcia, dresses as a spirit for Halloween.
“Steven Gerrard is certainly one of my favorite enemies,” said Mourinho in 2015. And as the old saying reads, you keep your friends closer and your enemies closer.
Mourinho would try to sign Gerrard in Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid, and in the summer of 2005, only six weeks after inspiring the historical comeback of the Reds against AC Milan in the Champions League final, the midfielder gave a transfer search.
Gerrard was irritated after contract discussions were stuck and, as he describes in his autobiography, decided to use “a hand grenade in the Liverpool boardroom”.
The Talisman of Liverpool would eventually commit his future to Anfield, but the Saga only added fuel to what was now a furious fire of a rivalry.
The following season, as if he wanted to worsen the tension, the teams were signed in the same Champions League group, with both games that ended in 0-0 stalemate.
In the Premier League, Chelsea triumphed 4-1 on Anfield and 2-0 on Stamford Bridge, but in another semi-final-time in the FA Cup-insured persons the men of Benitez a 2-1 win.
Ten meetings in two seasons, but we couldn't get enough.
For the third consecutive season, Liverpool and Chelsea clashed a total of five times.
The Reds triumphed in the community shield, while both parties each included a victory in the competition.
At this point, Chelsea was the dominant side in England, but when it came to a second semifinal of the Champions League in three years, Liverpool repeated their success of 2005 with a victory over punishment.
Looking back at that moment, Carragher said to Lampard: “I will be honest. I couldn't stand you like a club. It surpasses Everton and Manchester United as our rivalry for a period.”
In the following season, Mourinho Chelsea departs, but the two teams remained inseparable, with another five meetings in 2007-08.
Two competitions were accompanied by the 2-0 victory of Chelsea in the League Cup, in which Peter Crouch was broadcast for a wild outages (further evidence, if necessary, how heated the collisions were).
And the blues, now under the management of Avram Grant, finally won revenge in the Champions League and won 4-3 in total in the semi-final, where Lampard scored the decisive goal, just a few days after his mother died.
The tables became somewhat somewhat in 2008-09, with Liverpool enjoying the better competition campaign, but Chelsea Triumph in Europe.
For the fifth consecutive season, the clubs met in the Champions League and perhaps produced the biggest bond of the party.
After Chelsea won 3-1 in Anfield, Liverpool threatened another famous comeback in a pulsating 4-4 draw on Stamford Bridge.
In those five years, Liverpool and Chelsea had met stunningly 24 times.
After the departure of Benitez, Liverpool struggled poorly under Roy Hodgson and Fernando Torres decided to exchange Merseyside for West -Londs in a £ 50 million step that the Reds believers raged.
Ironically, Torres' Chelsea debut came against Liverpool, when both fans and the players announced their feelings well – the early challenge of Daniel Agger left the striker on the ground, and the sentiment was shared in the disappointment.
When Mourinho returned to Chelsea in 2013, the luminaire again had a pantomime villain.
Usually it was Mourinho and Gerrard in the middle of the story, with the Slip Gifting Manchester City from the midfielder the title after a master class from the Portuguese in Anfield.
Chelsea fans were always quickly at Gerrard at that time, never more than his last performance at Stamford Bridge.
“I am not pulled to wish the Chelsea fans the best, it was nice that they showed up once today,” was Gerrard's response.
The virtues of respect are often preached in football, but sometimes nothing is as fascinating as a rivalry built on poor blood.
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