Steven Gerrard is set to leave Liverpool this summer, after over 700 games for the club, with him putting in fantastic performances in the majority of them. However there was one game, nine years ago today, that typified his talent in a Red shirt. Let's take a look back to Saturday May the 13th 2006, as Liverpool beat West Ham United on penalties in the FA Cup final.
Liverpool had put in a fairly solid Premier League season, once again securing stewardship of Champions League football under Rafael Benitez thanks to a third placed finish. West Ham had been the surprise package of the division, as Alan Pardew led the newly promoted Hammers to a ninth placed finish.
To reach the final, Liverpool took the difficult route. Seeing off Luton 5-3 in the third round, they then beat Premier League sides Portsmouth, Manchester United and Birmingham to set up another semi-final contest with Chelsea. John Arne Riise's free-kick was added to with a Luis Garcia goal, and the Reds won 2-1.
West Ham had a slightly less complicated passage to the final, the last to be held at the Millenium Stadium, as they defeated Norwich, Blackburn, Bolton, Manchester City and Middlesbrough.
The game started with Liverpool as strong favourites, however West Ham took a shock early lead through a Jamie Carragher own goal. Striker Dean Ashton played the ball outwide to Lionel Scaloni, who saw his cross put in for an own goal by Carragher after the defender misjudged the speed of the ball.
The goal gave West Ham further momentum, and they doubled their lead soon after. An uncharacteristic error from Pepe Reina saw the Liverpool 'keeper spill a Matthew Etherington shot, giving Ashton a tap in.
Liverpool were in trouble, and it was their captain that began the rescue mission. With just a few first-half minutes left, Gerrard picked up the ball on the right hand side of the pitch, and pinged a delightful pass into the penalty area for Djibril Cisse. The Frenchman took it in his stride, vollying home to make it 2-1.
Liverpool took the advantage and equalised soon after half-time, Gerrard this time the scorer. A clipped ball into the box was knocked down to the edge of the area, with Gerrard arriving in perfect time to execute a superb volley into the top left hand corner.
If Liverpool's goals were all of the highest quality, then it could be argued that West Ham's goals were the opposite. An own goal, a rebound and then it was a cross which put them 3-2 ahead.
Despite having had their two-goal lead clawed back, the Hammers went ahead again after 78 minutes through Paul Konchesky, who would ironically go on to play for Liverpool.
The left-back surged down the channel and appeared to have put in a poor cross as it went nowhere near anybody's head, only to loop in over Reina's head.
The Reds looked down and out as the board went up for stoppage time, but Gerrard once again was the hero as he scored one of the best goals in FA Cup history to make it 3-3 in the last minute. Another long ball into the area was cleared, and Gerrard unleashed a 35 yard piledriver that slammed into Shaka Hislop's bottom corner.
The game headed to extra time, with both sides admittedly running on low energy, after taking part in a pulsating 90 minutes. Riise went closest for Liverpool, with his shot flying over the bar before Reina pushed a Nigel Reo Coker header onto the post late on. Alas, there were no more goals and the affair went to penalties.
They went like this...
Hamann scored (LFC), Zamora missed (WHU), Hypia missed (LFC), Sheringham scored (WHU), Gerrard scored (LFC), Konchesky missed (WHU), Riise scored (LFC).
That left the score at 3-1, with Anton Ferdinand needing to score to keep West Ham in it. The defender stepped up but saw his penalty saved by Reina, handing Liverpool the cup!