Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek revealed he had been inspired by Bruce Grobbelaar's goal-line antics in Rome 21 years earlier to emerge as the club's latest European penalty shoot-out hero.
Dudek saved penalties from both Andrea Pirlo and Andriy Shevchenko to ensure the Champions League trophy would be returning to Anfield for the first time since 1984.
Against Roma, Liverpool had also prevailed on penalties, albeit not after miraculously fighting their way back from 3-0 down at half-time, as they did in Istanbul.
On that occasion, Grobbelaar bamboozled the Roma players with his bandy-leg circus routines on the goal-line, with Bruno Conti and Francesco Graziani both missing.
This time around, Dudek was just as off-putting, darting sideways as the Milan players stepped up to the spot.
He revealed: "Jamie Carragher came up to me just before the penalties and said 'remember Bruce Grobbelaar and the rubbery legs in 1984'.
"He said 'do the same and put them off'. That's what I did and it seemed to work! Of course I remembered it, and it was my inspiration."
He added: "You never know with penalties, it's a lottery. We had studied their penalty takers and looked at them on video. But every time I was supposed to go to the right, I went to the left!
"The idea was to wait until the last possible minute and then make myself big and see what they did before diving."
Dudek dedicated Liverpool's incredible victory to the memory of the late Pope John Paul II, a Pole who was also a former goalkeeper and died earlier this year.
"I've felt inspiration since his death, I can't account for it. I had met him and was really moved by him," revealed the Polish international goalkeeper.
"It has been a devastating year for all Poles and he has been a major presence in all of our lives. It seems incredible this could happen to me in the year of his death."
