Liverpool's Champions League game with Paris Saint-Germain this week is an intriguing match-up, due in part to a distinct lack of previous encounters between them. The two sides have only faced off four times previously before this week's Round of 16 opener in the French capital.

The most recent was in the group stages of the same competition in 2018, when a late Robert Firmino goal earned the Reds a 3-2 victory against a PSG team that included Kylian Mbappe and Brazil great Neymar. Thomas Tuchel's side would get their revenge in the return fixture, with a 2-1 reversal, but it was Jurgen Klopp's Reds that eventually went on to lift the trophy for the sixth time in Madrid six months later.

However, the first meeting between Liverpool and their French counterparts was, perhaps, more eventful and arguably more significant for a certain generation of young supporters. This writer was a fresh-faced 17-year-old when Roy Evans steered his swashbuckling side to the semi-finals of the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners' Cup - a competition they had qualified for after finishing runners-up to Manchester United in a quite dreadful 1996 FA Cup final.

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Their reward was a two-legged affair against the competition's holders PSG. This pairing arrived before the French side became awash with Qatari money, but rather during a period where they were financially boosted by TV channel Canal+. As a result, they enjoyed some star performers in their side - including the Brazilian World Cup winners Leonardo and Rai.

Being one game away from a European final could hardly have been more significant for Liverpool. The last time they had reached this stage was in 1985, when Joe Fagan's side dispatched Greek champions Panathinaikos 5-0 on aggregate before going on to face Juventus in the European Cup final.

Sadly, the subsequent 1-0 defeat for Fagan's side would prove insignificant after 39 supporters - mostly-Italian - lost their lives at the Heysel disaster, leading to a blanket ban of English clubs from European competition that lasted six years. Teenage supporters like me had not grown up with European football as a consequence and knew very little about it until our eyes were dazzled by the 1990 World Cup in Italy.

What it also meant was that a whole generation of supporters had not experienced one of the true pleasures of following Liverpool Football Club - the shear excitement of a big European night at Anfield. There had been one notable exception, of sorts, previously following the lifting of the ban in 1991 when the Reds overturned a 2-0 first leg deficit against French side Auxerre by winning the return leg 3-0 under Graeme Souness, thanks to a late winning goal from Mark Walters.

But while this cult match will remain an Anfield classic for some, it was in the UEFA Cup second round in a straight knock-out format and only 23,094 people were there to witness it.

So no, without question, Liverpool's biggest European match since 1985 at Anfield was the Cup Winner's Cup semi-final second leg against Paris Saint-Germain. But by the time the matchday had arrived Evans' side were already 3-0 down.

The Reds boasted a side including the likes of Robbie Fowler, Stan Collymore and Steve McManaman - as well as an ageing John Barnes - but the first leg in Paris was an absolute disaster. Goals from Leonardo, Benoît Cauet and Jérôme Leroy had given the hosts a seemingly unassailable lead to take back to Anfield.

The deficit may have been smaller had McManaman not had a second goal ruled out for a suspect offside call. But VAR was just a figment of the imagination in 1997.

Instead, it set up a mission impossible task for Evans and his side, but with the memory of Auxerre still in people's minds, anything seemed possible as Anfield got set for it's biggest European night in years. My now late father had, of course, told me all about the glory years of Liverpool's past European greatness at Anfield. Internazionale and Saint Etienne were his two favourite home games of all time and now it was my turn to experience this European atmosphere for myself.

Positioned somewhere near the front of the Kop, this was actually one of the first really tests of the all-seater version of the famous terrace. It might seem odd now but, back then, supporters did not stand on the seated Kop as a matter of routine. The installation of seats had been taken literally by many supporters and a mixture of sitting an standing between different passages of play on the Kop had become normal.

This game was different, however, with most of the crowd electing to stand throughout. PSG could be forgiven for thinking they were already back in the final when they turned up at Anfield, but they were in for a surprise.

The business end of a season has truly arrived when evening matches kick-off at dusk. That was the case here with a defiant atmosphere and the odd sneaked in flare providing an experience that felt more like those stadiums I had seen at Italia '90 rather than what I had witnessed at Anfield previously.

Liverpool needed to produce the biggest comeback in their European history if they were to progress to the final and they got off to the perfect start when Fowler profited from strong hold-up play by Collymore to arrow home the opener in the 12th minute with a typically instinctive finish.

Anfield exploded. Here was the atmosphere that my father had promised me, only this time I was part of it. The Reds continued to work tirelessly in search of a second goal, all the time knowing that if the visitors score even once it was game over. With time ebbing away, Anfield got it's grandstand finish 11 minutes from the end when centre-back Mark Wright climbed highest to steer home a bullet header from a Stig Inge Bjornebye corner.

Cue utter bedlam in the Kop. As the bodies settled, my friend gestured with me with all of his fingers "ten minutes"! The comeback was on. Liverpool pressed hard amid a white-hot atmosphere for the equaliser and it looked like it had arrived when Fowler found the ball at his feet late on but, agonisingly, the Kop idol could not get the ball out from under him and the chance was gone.

PSG were dead on their feet and hanging on. Even goalkeeper David James came up for a corner and headed an effort over the bar, but it was not to be as the exhausted visitors clung on to secure a 3-2 aggregate victory. Anfield had already recognised the efforts of their team before Fowler's golden chance had even arrived, singing You'll Never Walk Alone in tribute to their heroes, but there was to be no happy ending this time.

The game, however, did pave the way for a new wave of supporters to grasp the excitement of European football and embed themselves in a new era of success on the continent in due course, finally arriving in success under Gerard Houllier in 2001 with even greater achievements waiting around the corner.

Having finished top of the Champions League league phase and currently sitting 13 points clear at the top of the Premier League, Arne Slot's Liverpool will head into Wednesday night's clash in Paris as the slight favourites, but even if they don't get the result that they want at the Parc des Princes, there will always be the memory of 1997 to ignite another famous Anfield comeback.