The 4 Most Significant Finals in the History of the UEFA Champions League

Since the reformation of the European Cup in 1992, we have witnessed a plethora of breathtaking finals that will live long in the memory of all footballing fans.

In total, 12 teams have held the current Champions League trophy aloft at the end of the regular season, ranging from seven different nations.

In those 12 finals, 53 goals have been scored, and a staggering 1,165,064 tickets have been sold to the viewing public.

Tomorrow evening's final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich has the potential to be one of the most fascinating clashes that the tournament has ever seen in its final match.

Both sides (especially Chelsea with the lack of Terry and Ivanovic) will be focusing heavily around attacking and getting at their opponents defence, as opposed to playing the "parking the bus" style of football that has unfortunately become more common practice in relation to bigger matches in the modern era.

If Chelsea win then they will become the 13th club to have their name etched onto the illustrious list of winners at Champions League HQ.

With that game fast approaching, lets take the chance to look back at some of the past finals and once again remember the glory and drama that so often goes hand-in-hand with this remarkable competition.

Here are four of the most important Champions League finals in history.

FC Porto vs. Monaco, 2003-04

This was arguably the most intriguing year in Champions League history.

After a Herculean rise through the European ranks in the 2002-03 season, FC Porto ended up winning the UEFA Cup final 3-2 against Scottish giants Celtic.

Things were going swimmingly for the Portuguese side on the domestic front too, clinching the Primeira Liga title by a whopping 11 points over closest rivals Benfica.

As such, Porto went into the 2003-04 season with a sense of immense confidence, and an automatic qualification to the group stages of the Champions League.

When the minnows, led by a plucky young manager by the name of Jose Mourinho, knocked out Manchester United in the last 16, the footballing masses took note.

Despite the impressive victory, many put the win down to luck.

But when the good results kept coming for Mourinho's men, suddenly we were left with a final that nobody could have predicted at the start of the season.

The fact that Porto alone managed to make the final is astonishing, but when you also look at who their opponents were, things become even more amazing.

AS Monaco FC, who are now unfortunately playing football in Ligue 2 of the French system, were perhaps even less well known than their Portuguese counterparts.

Having impressed in the group stages—on one occasion breaking a new record for most goals scored in one match, with an 8-3 victory over Deportivo La Coruna—they too stunned the world as they knocked out the likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea on their way to the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen.

Eventually, Porto would go on to win the game 3-0. 

But what was so miraculous about this final wasn't the match itself but the two sides that contested it.

Admittedly in hindsight, it should not have come as too much of a surprise that a team consisting of the likes of Deco, Ricardo Carvalho and Nuno Maniche was good enough to win the Champions League.

But at the time, these players were relative unknowns, and that is what makes this game so memorable and exciting.

This game epitomised the magic of football.

It showed that anything is possible, and anyone can win if they have the heart.

What was even more fitting was that very summer, the European Championships (hosted in Portugal with the national side made up of the majority of the Porto team) were conquered by Greece.

2004 is without question the ultimate year of the underdogs in football.

Manchester United vs Bayern Munich, 1998-99

What more can be said about this final that hasn't already been said?

There wont be many fans of the game, whether United supporters or neutral onlookers, who wouldn't agree that the last five minutes of this match were perhaps the most exciting in the history of the tournament—perhaps even in the history of European football in general.

Ironically, the final was pretty much the embodiment of United's entire Champions League campaign that season.

Time after time, United struck late and in dramatic fashion to narrowly scrape through to the next stage of the competition.

If you were to compile a list of the greatest semi-finals in the history of the Champions League, then United's draw from this very same season against Italian giants Juventus would also place highly on that list!

One has to feel for Bayern, who dominated the match but just couldn't find that killer goal to bury the future Champions of Europe once and for all.

Many cite this game as the (true) beginning of United's dominance in football.

Yes, they had by this stage already culminated a vast amount of FA Cup and Premiership trophies.

But many argued that it would not be until they sat atop of the European ladder that we could finally credit them with the lineage of greatness that they now proudly hold.

Don't feel too bad for Bayern, though: Just two years later they would go on to beat Valenica on penalties at the San Siro to become rulers of Europe once more.

And who knows, maybe they can clinch their fifth title tomorrow night—granting them the honour of keeping the trophy permanently in their cabinet at the Allianz Arena, the venue where the game is taking place.

Manchester United vs. Barcelona, 2010-11

This was perhaps the most fitting clash ever in the final of a major European tournament.

United and Barca have been the two most dominant forces in club football in the past decade and a half, and so it was only fitting that at the beginning of a new decade, the two sides would fight it out to see who had the stranglehold over Europe once and for all. 

Unsurprisingly, in an age where United are slowly starting to weaken and Barca are putting up a claim as to whether or not they are the greatest team (in any form of the game) of all time, the Spanish side took home the glory.

The match ended 3-1, and, in similar fashion to two years previous, Barcelona dominated for 90 percent of the game.

It was unquestionable that Pep Guardiola's men deserved the trophy, and as such, it cemented their place as the greatest club team of the past 15 years.

It was in fact Barcelona's third Champions League title since just 2006, showing the massive step forward that the club had taken in that short period of time.

An interesting fact: Barca have only ever won the Champions League by beating an English team in the final.

2-1 against Arsenal in 2006, 2-0 against United in 2009, and 3-1 here in 2011.

With the defeat to Chelsea this season in the semi-finals, the loss of the La Liga title to the Galacticos of Madrid at home and the departure of much-adored manager Pep Guardiola, one has to wonder whether the time of Barcelona at the top of world football is over.

With their seemingly unlimited bank funds, could we now be seeing the ultimate reversal in European football: the replacement of Barcelona by the once-all-powerful Real Madrid and the usurping of the English throne by Manchester City?

This would be an almost Shakespearean turn of events—as the two previously dominant clubs will be losing their power to each of their greatest rivals!

Liverpool vs. AC Milan, 2004-05

I held out no hope whatsoever going into this game for the Reds.

In fact, if memory serves correctly, practically nobody did—even Liverpool fans!

When Hernan Crespo made it 3-0 just before the stroke of half time, it looked like Liverpool were going to be on the wrong end of one of the most humiliating defeats in the history of Champions League finals.

The Scousers had barely had a touch of the ball and could do nothing to break past the extremely solid Milan midfield and defence.

However, what happened in just six minutes of second-half football had the whole of England—and perhaps even neutrals across the world—raving like lunatics.

From absolutely nowhere, the game did a complete 180, and suddenly, it was Milan who could no longer carve out attacks.

In the 54th minute of play, Steven Gerrard, who had for so long been the talisman of English football, got on the end of a John Arne Riise cross and headed the ball into the top right-hand corner of the net.

Two minutes later, Anfield legend Vladimir Smicer repeated the feat, striking an absolute screamer of a low drive past Brazilian goalkeeper Dida.

Suddenly, the game was very much back on.

When Xabi Alonso scored the rebound off his own missed penalty to make the score 3-3 on the hour mark, the game was only ever going to go one way.

Astonishingly, despite an extra hour of play—the remaining 30 minutes and the 30 minutes of extra time—this was how the game ended, and as such, penalties would decide the eventual outcome.

In what has to go down as one of his (if not his only) greatest performances in a Liverpool shirt, Jerzy Dudek became the hero of the piece, making a string of saves from the likes of Shevchenko and Crespo to bring the title back to Merseyside. 

Most important of all for Liverpool, this was their fifth European success, granting them the proud honour of keeping the cup forever in their trophy cabinet.

Since then, things have been on a drastic decline in the red half of Liverpool. This season they finishing eighth—level on points with ninth placed Fulham—and failed to qualify for the Champions League for the third consecutive year.

Still, whatever the poor fortunes of the Reds at the moment, they will always have this night to look back on and remember forever.