It’s not the result or the celebrations which Manuel Fernandes remembers most, but the suffering.
“That first half an hour, man!” the former Portugal midfielder tells GOAL. “Wow, that was hell!”
It is more than 16 years since Fernandes was part of a Benfica side which knocked Liverpool out of the Champions League, and while he admits his memory is a little “fuzzy” at times, he can still recall what he felt when experiencing Anfield for the first time.
“For me, English stadiums and atmospheres are the best I ever experienced,” he says. “I liked Old Trafford, but Anfield was something different even to that.
“I am not sure how I can explain it, but you just feel something. Before the game has even started, you feel like you are playing against 12 men.”
If that’s true – and plenty would say the same as Fernandes – then Benfica’s achievement that night in 2006 stands up even better.
Liverpool, after all, were the reigning European champions when they were drawn against the Portuguese giants in the last 16 that year, but they were dispatched comfortably in the end, beaten 3-0 on aggregate.
“The first leg was a very even game,” says Fernandes. “We managed to get a late goal to win 1-0 and take a lead to Anfield.
“In the second leg, they came at us with everything. We were a little bit lucky, and we struggled to contain them at times, but we knew that would be the case. They had a great team with [Steven] Gerrard, [Xabi] Alonso and the rest.
“Fortunately, we scored through Simao [Sabrosa] just before half-time, and that changed the whole game. It was a fantastic goal, and I think after that, everything changed.
“We were able to get more space and control, and once [Fabrizio] Miccoli scored the second goal, the game was basically over.”
Benfica were clapped off after their 2-0 win on Merseyside, but their run would come to an end in the quarter-finals when they were beaten by Frank Rijkaard’s Barcelona, who would go on to defeat Arsenal in the final in Paris.
“We were unlucky against Barcelona,” Fernandes says. “We drew 0-0 at home, and then we went to Camp Nou. That was another complicated first half hour!
“They got a penalty in the first five minutes which Ronaldinho missed, but that was a team of legends: Ronaldinho, Deco, [Samuel] Eto’o, [Andres] Iniesta, [Carles] Puyol.
“We played a good game, especially at home, but to stop all of those players for two legs was always going to be difficult. They had [Mark] van Bommel, Deco and Iniesta in the middle. Not bad!
“I was used to having the ball as a midfield player, but I had to do a lot of chasing. They didn’t have the control of [Pep] Guardiola’s team a few years later, but they were on a very high level and had incredible individuals.”
Fernandes, a gifted playmaker who would win 15 caps for his country, would leave Benfica that summer, joining Harry Redknapp’s Portsmouth on loan. A culture shock, GOAL suggests?
“I had an injury that season [2005-06], so I was not 100 per cent all year,” he says. “I was not happy with the medical staff and how it was handled, so I asked the president if I could leave.
“In that pre-season, I was injured, and didn’t do any training with Benfica. It was the first year of Fernando Santos, who is now the manager of Portugal.
“And then I got the chance to join Portsmouth. I went on a one-year loan and, in the first two months, I was recovering from my groin injury, but after that, I started to play.
“The thing was, there was a clause in my contract that if I started five games in a row then they had to buy me.
"So, I would play four games in the first XI, and then in the fifth they would not start me! They didn’t want to pay the money!”
And so, in January 2007, he was on the move again, this time to Everton.
“I remember meeting David Moyes at the Marriott in Liverpool,” he says. “Everton felt like home.
“Portsmouth felt like a team that was still being built. Players were coming in and out, it was less organised and there was no stability.
"But, at Everton, it felt like a familiar place, everything was the way a football team is supposed to be. I felt more comfortable there.
“It was a very good side. Arteta, Pienaar, Cahill, Lescott, Yobo, Howard, Yakubu, Andy Johnson, Phil Neville. It was a really good team.”
Did it surprise him to see Arteta go on and become a Premier League coach?
“No,” he replies. “With the way he thought about football, it always felt like he could do that.
“He’s very intelligent. He was a classic No.6 in Spain, but he played almost as a right winger in England even though he is not quick or really physical.
"He did that because he is clever, because his passing was so good, his technique and his brain. He thought differently from the rest.
“He is doing so well at Arsenal, but also because he was given time. It hasn’t surprised me.”
In England, Fernandes would see the rise of another young Portuguese talent. He and Cristiano Ronaldo had been rivals as youth-teamers with Benfica and Sporting.
“He was a dribbler, basically,” he says. “Then, when I played at Old Trafford with Portsmouth, I think we lost 3-0 and he scored a goal. And you could see how much he had changed.
“Suddenly, he was very vertical, with and without the ball. To begin with, he would only play with the ball at his feet but, in a relatively short time, he improved his game immensely. It was very impressive to see.”
Fernandes believes Ronaldo’s rise, and the work ethic which has underpinned it, is part of the reason why Portugal has been able to produce so many top-class talents in recent years.
“I think he started to rub off on players, I really believe that,” he says. “I’m not saying that before we didn’t want to win, but I think he showed players that to win, you have to do something that will make the team win.
“It is easy to say ‘I want to win’, but are you putting the extra effort to do so? What are you doing?
"Cristiano showed that if you do everything you can do, then you can go to the next level and achieve incredible things. I think that was a good influence for all Portuguese players.”
Like Ronaldo, Fernandes has been able to continue playing well into his 30s. He’s 36 now, and still performing for Greek Super League side Apollon Smyrnis. It’s different, he says, to be fighting against relegation, but an experience he is enjoying nonetheless.
“For me, it took me out of my comfort zone,” he says. “It’s new, but you can always take something from a situation if you wish to.”
He still keeps a close eye on Benfica, naturally. He remembers his early days under Jose Camacho and Giovanni Trapattoni, in particular.
“They were the best coaches I had,” he says. “They got the best out of me.”
He is far less complimentary about others. Slaven Bilic, his last coach at Besiktas, is a different character in reality to the one he portrays as an erudite, funny television pundit, he says.
"It's easy to talk, not so easy to act," Fernandes says, bluntly.
Ronald Koeman, who managed him at Besiktas, gets a more withering assessment.
“You have to respect the player he was," he says. "And it’s a difficult job to be a coach, I respect that, but it’s not that complicated.
"And it’s much more complicated when you have a bigger ego than your players! If you cannot even manage your own ego, how will you manage everyone else? Especially when things don’t go well, when results are bad, the deck of cards can collapse.
“That’s what’s happened with him the whole way through. The only time he succeeds is when he takes over a team that is already made, like with Southampton after Pochettino, or with the Dutch national team.
"If he has to build a team from scratch like at Everton or Barcelona, he cannot do it. He cannot deal with the things he has to."
Fernandes may have travelled Europe, but he is a Benfica man at heart. He will watch his former club against Liverpool this week, of course, but rates their chances of progression to the semi-finals as “small".
“It will be very difficult, especially playing in Lisbon first,” he says. “Liverpool are stronger than just about any side. They are a different level.
“The fact that they could have Luis Diaz, [Diogo] Jota, Naby Keita, even someone like Jordan Henderson on the bench tells you the level they are at.
“If you have these kinds of possibilities, then your team is almost from a different world! If Benfica could make a surprise, I would be super-happy, but it will be very complicated.
"I think this is England’s year in the Champions League… just like last year!”