Anfield still does a European night like no other ground in the country and Liverpool are the side others will be hoping to avoid in Friday’s draw for the Europa League semi-finals after proving they are masters of the art of the impossible comeback.
Four second-half goals against Borussia Dortmund saw Liverpool advance 5-4 on aggregate, a scenario that did not appear to be on the cards when the visitors went two goals up inside nine minutes, or when they scored a third in the second half to take a 3-1 lead. Goals from Divock Origi and Philippe Coutinho brought the home side back into the game, but the knockout blows came courtesy of the two centre-halves, Mamadou Sakho and Dejan Lovren, the last heading a dramatic stoppage-time winner to prevent the Germans advancing on away goals.
“It was a wonderful, wonderful night,” said Jürgen Klopp, who for most of the game had looked likely to be upstaged by his old team. “That was football at its best, a great game to experience for everyone involved. We wanted to be brave but that becomes more difficult when you go behind so early, though in the end I think the result was deserved. We might have got a little bit lucky but we never stopped trying and we created a lot of chances.”
Liverpool will now be favourites to win the trophy, and with it entry into next season’s Champions League, though Klopp was terse in the extreme on live television when the prospect was put to him. “Don’t ask me about this shit,” he said, forcing BT Sport to issue an apology. “Let us get through the semi-final first,” he added. “We have just played a brilliant, outstanding game, but we are bound to get a really strong opponent in the next round and we will have to do it all over again.”
Klopp admitted his team’s chances of progressing looked bleak at the outset. “The counter-attack of Dortmund is well known, and they hit us twice,” he said. “Very often in football the game would have been over, but not here, not with this Liverpool team. As was proved in 2005 when Liverpool came back from three goals down to win a Champions League final, anything is possible if you try.
“It did not really look likely at first, but when we started to come back everyone could see something changed inside the stadium. You could feel it and smell it. We had to show our character and that’s exactly what the lads did. It was pretty cool to watch, but the lads deserve all the credit.”
Dortmund’s coach Thomas Tuchel did not dispute that version of events, once he had recovered from a mixture of shock and disappointment. “I cannot explain what took place, because that would imply there were logical or tactical reasons behind the result, and I don’t think any of that happened,” he said.
“We reacted well to Liverpool’s first goal, but once they scored again we began to lose our control of the game. It was strange, like we stopped trusting ourselves. We no longer dared to attack, we were concentrating on defending, and every supporter in the ground seemed to know there would be a lucky punch right at the end. It was as if it was meant to be.
“Liverpool took a lot of risks towards the end, but they beat us fairly enough and I would like to offer congratulations. It is important to be honourable in defeat. It was quite a game, quite a night, but Liverpool won and they deserved it.”
