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Former Liverpool striker Djibril Cisse views the horrific double leg break he suffered while playing for Liverpool as a sacrifice which helped the Reds to win the Champions League that season.
Cisse joined Liverpool from Marseille in the summer of 2004, but just a few months into his time at the club sustained a gruesome injury during a league game away to Blackburn.
The injury ruled him out for the majority of the remainder of the season, but he did return to play some part in the closing weeks of the campaign, including coming off the bench in the famous Champions League final against AC Milan in Istanbul.
The scoring had been concluded by the time Cisse entered the pitch, with Liverpool having scored three times in seven minutes at the start of the second half to draw Liverpool level at 3-3.
Cisse played his part in the victory though, scoring Liverpool's second penalty in the shootout, and he recalled the final as he spoke exclusively with Ladbrokes about his time with Liverpool.
“When I arrived, there was already the French connection at Liverpool; we had a lot of French speakers," Cisse said. "Gerard Houllier had been there, even though I didn't end up working with him in the end, and there was Djimi Traore, Florent Sinama Pongolle, Anthony Le Tallec and El-Hadji Diouf. So it was easy for me to adapt, but I had to respect the country too and speak English and learn the English way of living and playing football.
“Obviously you had the English guys, the legends like Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, but even my non-English teammates like Milan Baros and Sami Hyypia were all really, really good with me and did their best to make life easy for me.
“My teammates, and the people of Liverpool, all made it really easy for me to settle in the city, to be honest. Obviously the hardest time I faced was when I broke my leg at Blackburn.
"But, as I said, I had really good people around me to help me through that time. I always say that injury was my sacrifice... I gave my leg to win the Champions League for Liverpool!
“We knew something special would happen on that night when we got into the changing room at half-time, at 3-0 down. We all knew it wasn't finished, and that if we scored early in the second-half, we could go and try to win the game. It's just not the Liverpool way to give up... we knew it wasn't finished, and it wasn't!”
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