Milan were the designated home team for the Champions League Final and hence had the ability to choose their playing strip first. Carlo Ancelotti has always said their white away jersey was lucky and has stuck to his flimsy theory.

Milan will line up in white, Liverpool in red, just like two years ago. Liverpool have never lost a Champions League final in their red strip to a team in white. I know that sounds like a crazy and useless statistic, but every little thing is another inch gained in the psychological battle before and during the game.

One bit of information that will inspire Milan is that Liverpool have never beaten Italian opponents in regular time. They beat Roma 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in 1984, lost to Juventus 1-0 in 1985, and beat Milan 3-2 on penalties after a 3-3 draw in 2005. The pattern against Italian opponents of win on penalties, lose in normal time, win on penalties will see Milan beat Liverpool in normal time.

Another pattern that may continue is that of Milan's recent finals run in the Champions League; won in 1990, lost 1993, won 1994, lost 1995, won 2003, lost 2005 (win 2007?) If it does go to penalties Liverpool have a better record, but there are plenty of Italy's World Cup winners to remind their Milan team-mates that France had the statistical edge against Italy in penalties, until Fabio Grosso converted his spot-kick.

While none of this has a bearing on this final scientifically speaking, player morale will definitely be affected by these statistics as they are floated around by the media. They won't affect the players before the game. It's in the middle of a game, when a goal is scored, a bad decision is made by the referee, the momentum is strongly with one team or a player makes a mistake. That's when these things start popping up in players' minds and how they respond to the thoughts running through their head mid-game is what makes the war of words so important.

Will Milan drop their heads if they concede an early goal or be spurred on to rally back into the game? Would Liverpool be able to come back from three goals behind at half-time again?