It was a moment, gloriously surreal, which perfectly encapsulated the joy of this majestic Liverpool team right now…and the insanity of this astonishing game.
Half an hour in, Andy Robertson, finding himself at right back, glanced up under pressure on the edge of his own penalty area, and swept a 50 yard ball for Trent Alexander-Arnold to gallop onto….from the left wing.
Quite what either was doing there no one could quite fathom. But then, no one had any real answers to what had transpired on this remarkable Anfield evening.
Perhaps we shouldn’t even try. There was a simple, inexplicable beauty to the move, and a wonderful naivety to this contest that defies the usual analysis. For that, we must thank the wonderfully innocent tactics of Salzburg.
They decided the only way to counter the threat of possibly the most dangerous pair of full backs in Europe…was to give them acres of space to operate in.
That went as well as you’d expect, as the Reds raced to a three goal lead, and threatened an avalanche, with both full backs displaying the sheer ebullience of their incredible repertoire, and the rapier threat it produces.
It is hard to imagine a more creative pair of full backs in the history of the Premier League…and they must surely be the best pairing in European football right now.
The crass FIFA Best decision to award the full back berths in their team of the year to Real Madrid’s Marcelo and Sergio Ramos almost brought that organisation into disrepute, and there were times when you wondered if the visitors had been living on a different planet.
Yet if they integral to Jurgen Klopp’s tactics - and they were involved majestically in all three first half goals, with the best started and finished by Robertson - then having using full backs as wingers does sometimes have its drawbacks.
Slowly, as the game progressed, we realised what the plan was from the visitors, even if it was almost laughable in the sheer audacity of it.
They were prepared to slug end to end with the Champions of Europe and one of the most potent teams on the planet. It almost worked too, as somehow they turned the game on its head by dragging back all three goals either side of half time.
It was frantic and fun, barmy and brilliant. In the end though, Robertson and Alexander-Arnold’s class was just enough, as Liverpool made some sense of the senseless. If Salzburg gave us so many memories of this night, then the over-riding one was of Liverpool’s two joyous game-changers.
