Here’s a match report. It’s been remarkable. Bye!
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When they needed an experienced player to lead the team through a difficult moment and out the other side, none was available. Lovren (28) and Klavan (32) were too busy panicking, and Henderson (27) might know how to gee a side up but has no idea how to calm one down.
That was pure madness from Liverpool. Moreno made a couple of key errors at key moments, and the path of the game was turned on its head. He will get much of the blame, but the entire team crumbled in adversity. Players who were irresistible in the first half became invisible.
Oh yeah, that’s the one.
@Simon_Burnton A tale of two halves, surely, Simon
— Thomas McCarthy (@ThomasMcCarth16) November 21, 2017
Liverpool, with a home game against Spartak Moscow to go, top Group E with nine points and by some distance the best goal difference (+10). Sevilla, who are away at Maribor, are on eight (and a goal different of zero), and Spartak on six (their goal difference is +3). Maribor are out, with two points (and, for completeness, a goal difference of -13).
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Final score: Sevilla 3-3 Liverpool
90+7 mins: That wasn’t it, but now it is it. Or something. A remarkable match is over. Two halves of the same game, or something.
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90+6 mins: Sevilla mount one last attack, but Correa is offside and surely that’ll be it.
90+4 mins: Ludicrous. Remarkable. Phenomenal entertainment, but how did it come to this?
GOAL! Sevilla 3-3 Liverpool (Sarabia, 90+3 mins)
They’ve done it! The corner comes in, falls to the floor, and is poked through a thicket of legs and past Karius by Sarabia!
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90+3 mins: Sarabia, desperate, does a ludicrous dive outside the penalty area. The ball rolls on to Geis, whose shot is deflected wide.
90+2 mins: Lovren just gets a foot in to stop Muriel spinning and heading towards goal. The ball is booted clear. Two more minutes.
90+1 mins: There will be four minutes added on for stoppages.
89 mins: There was no penalty: Mane dived ludicrously when Geis tapped him gently on a shoulder.
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88 mins: Mane goes down in the area. There’s no whistle and the ball falls to Milner, who drives it across goal but there’s nobody there to tap in!
88 mins: The clock ticks. Liverpool have possession deep in Sevilla’s half.
86 mins: One last substitution for Liverpool, which seems Alex Olade-Chamberlain come on for Mo Salah.
85 mins: Oooh! Vazquez goes clear on the left and his cut-back is just too far from Correa, who flings a leg at it and misses.
82 mins: Emre Can is booked for absolutely nothing. Well, not entirely nothing: he brushed Mercado’s shirt with a palm, but the reaction was totally absurd.
81 mins: Another fine chance for Liverpool! This time Mane is played through, and with the goalkeeper advancing he tries to slam a drive inside the post, but slams it outside the post.
81 mins: There will be no hat-trick for Ben Yedder. He’s off, and Joaquin Correa is on.
78 mins: What a chance for Liverpool! Salah runs down the right and passes inside to Can inside the area, and he need only slide it across to Mane whose task would have been simple, but Banega flings out a leg and diverts the pass behind!
78 mins: Um, don’t tweet too soon. Sevilla win a corner, but Karius punches it clear.
Sadio Mané + Roberto Firmino = Liverpool heroes. 💪 #UCL pic.twitter.com/SSmqr4IojM
— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) November 21, 2017
75 mins: Whistles from the stands as Liverpool keep the ball for a bit. “In hockey, this would be described as a game of three periods. I’m not sure what the equivalent is in football,” writes Rob Edwards.
74 mins: A vague semblance of calm has briefly settled over the game. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Liverpool build a lead, and their opponents come right back, yedder, yedder, yedder! Tell me something I don’t know!” writes Peter Oh, channelling Seinfeld.
72 mins: Sevilla bring on Luis Muriel, and take off Nolito.
71 mins: Chance for Liverpool! Rico needlessly fumbles a weak right-wing cross and Sevilla fail to clear. Firmino steals the ball which rolls to Salah, who takes an unnecessary touch before shooting. It’s deflected wide.
70 mins: Sarabia reacts furiously to an offside decision going against him. He was clearly offside.
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68 mins: Henderson is booked for fouling Escudero. “It’s a shame there isn’t a term of common parlance to describe a fixture where the first 50% of the contest is strikingly different from the subsequent 50%,” writes Paul Griffin.
66 mins: Football, though, eh? Isn’t it?
65 mins: That Vazquez chance would not have counted, because there was a Sevilla player basically standing on Karius’s toes, in an offside position.
63 mins: Liverpool make a double substitution, putting Moreno out of his misery and Philippe Coutinho a breather, and bringing on James Milner and Emre Can.
62 mins: Sevilla hit the bar! Vazquez chests the ball down in the penalty area and shoots goalwards, and it hits the underside of Karius’s body and bounces up into the bar!
62 mins: Now Vazquez escapes from Moreno and blasts a shot at goal, which Karius catches.
61 mins: This is remarkable stuff. Moreno is making a concerted attempt to win Sevilla’s man of the match award.
GOAL! Sevilla 2-3 Liverpool (Ben Yedder, 60 mins)
Karius goes the other way, and so does Ben Yedder. Goal! It’s on!
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60 mins: Ben Yedder sends it into the corner, but the referee spots some encroachment and tells him to retake it!
Penalty! Sevilla have a penalty!
59 mins: Moreno miscontrols, the ball runs between his legs, and Ben Yedder runs onto it. Moreno sticks out a leg in an attempt to win it back, and treads on Ben Yedder’s toe. The reaction is comically ridiculously over the top, but it is a penalty.
58 mins: Liverpool have barely been out of their half since the break.
56 mins: Escudero has three opportunities to cross, in quick succession, his efforts getting better each time and ending with Moreno heading clear, with Karius poorly positioned and unable to assist.
55 mins: That gives Sevilla another attacking free-kick, but three of their players are caught offside as the ball goes in.
54 mins: Mercado is booked for angrily screaming at the referee after Sevilla awarded a free kick. Probably – rightly – telling him that it was never a free kick, and he should have just waved play on.
GOAL! Sevilla 1-3 Liverpool (Ben Yedder, 51 mins)
Moreno commits an unnecessary foul just outside the penalty area on the right, and Banega’s cross is headed across goal and in by Ben Yedder at the near post. Game on!
50 mins: Gomez has made a couple of mistakes at right-back, though they haven’t really been punished. One led to Nolito’s excellent chance in the first half, and he just let a ball bounce in his own penalty area that he should have just headed clear, with a Sevilla player behind him, and got away with that as well.
48 mins: Banega floats a ball into the area, and Sarabia runs onto it with no defender anywhere remotely near. Surely, you think, he’s offside? Well it turns out he was, but only just, and also he got clattered by Karius.
46 mins: And Sevilla nearly score in the first minute, Lovren rescuing a worrying situation caused by Moreno’s poor header with a fine challenge.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! The visitors get the second half started.
The players are back out, and Sevilla will replace N’Zonzi with Franco Vazquez for the second half.
It is true that Sevilla are defensively enfeebled. Kjaer and Pareja both started at Anfield. Carrico had an operation last month and is out for a bit.
@Simon_Burnton Hi Simon, let's not forget Sevilla are missing Kjær, Nico Pareja and Daniel Carriço from defence. Alex
— Alex Miller (@SagMastaMillz) November 21, 2017
Half time: Sevilla 0-3 Liverpool
The game has hinged on a couple of chaotic minutes in which Sevilla missed two great chances to equalise, and then Liverpool ran up the other end and scored a second. Since then, Sevilla have crumbled and might have already conceded half a dozen as Liverpool rampage at pace around the field.
45+2 mins: Sevilla’s best move for a while ends with Karius beating Ben Yedder to a through ball.
45+1 mins: There’ll be two minutes or so of stoppage time. And another Liverpool player has scored:
GOAL! Monaco 1-4 Leipzig (Keïta 45). #UCL pic.twitter.com/3qChTquIjB
— Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) November 21, 2017
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45+1 mins: Salah passes to Coutinho, who is in a ludicrous amount of space in midfield. He sends a vicious shot dipping goalwards, but straight to Rico.
45 mins: Now Banega is booked, for pulling back Coutinho.
44 mins: A poor Sevilla cross lands on the head of an unchallenged Moreno, who charitably heads behind. He atones for the error by heading away the corner.
42 mins: Liverpool are ripping Seville to shreds here. Mane has time and space on the left, and Salah to pick out in the middle, but his cross is too close to Rico.
41 mins: Mane’s comedy late, cynical trip on Banega is somehow not punished with a yellow card.
40 mins: Liverpool should have had a fourth! Sevilla give the ball away in midfield, it’s passed to Coutinho and from him to Salah, running all alone into the penalty area, but his low left-foot shot is saved!
40 mins: Firmino looked the other way before scoring his second, and Liverpool’s third, which is just showing off. “Nice no-look welter into the open goal from Firmino,” writes Ian Copestake. “That was for the ball-boy!”
38 mins: Moreno is booked for fouling Mercado. Both went in one-footed for a bouncing ball – Mercado got the ball, and Moreno scraped a calf. Not a lot in it, though you wouldn’t know that by looking at Mercado’s reaction.
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37 mins: They don’t. Coutinho’s corner falls perfectly for Lovren to volley goalwards, but he totally misses his kick. The ball is poorly cleared and Salah has a shooting chance from 20 yards, which he hoofs high.
36 mins: Coutinho and Salah exchange passes in and around the Sevilla penalty area, and it ends with another corner. They couldn’t …
34 mins: Sevilla have conceded 12 goals in 12 La Liga matches, which is neither exemplary nor disastrous, but their defence is entirely unable to keep up with any of Mane, Salah or Firmino, and it’s causing them no end of grief.
GOAL! Sevilla 0-3 Liverpool (Firmino, 30 mins)
Extraordinary! A simple long ball sets Mane sprinting down the left. He cuts onto his right foot and shoots, much as Firmino did a few minutes ago, too close to Rico, but this time the goalkeeper’s touch carries the ball not behind for a corner but straight to the feet of Firmino, who has time to control, pause, and shoot into an empty net!
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28 mins: There’s a bit of a kerfuffle as a ball boy gives the ball to Gomez in a rather aggressive manner and is told to calm down by Gomez, followed by Klopp, followed by the referee.
27 mins: The second has led to a slight dip in tempo, from absurdly high to just average.
25 mins: There was a camera positioned at just the right angle to show Mane’s header curling beautifully inside the post. But though the players involved inside the penalty area weren’t identical, it is extremely unusual to see two such similar goals in the same game.
GOAL! Sevilla 0-2 Liverpool (Mane, 22 mins)
Liverpool score the same goal again! Coutinho’s fine, firm, dipping cross from the right, a flick-on by Firmino this time, and Mane is at the far post, diving to head back across goal and into the corner of the net!
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21 mins: Now Liverpool miss a great chance! Henderson sets Firmino on a foot race with Lenglet and the Brazilian wins it with ease, runs into the area, and then hits a low shot too close to Rico, whose touch takes it wide.
20 mins: Ben Yedder misses a sitter! This time Sevilla find a player in space on the right of the penalty area, and he slides the ball past the onrushing Karius and just past the far post!
19 mins: Sevilla hit the post! Ben Yedder finds Nolito, running beyond Gomez down the left. Gomez catches up, whereupon Nolito cuts onto his right foot, Gomez falls over, and the forward curls the ball towards the far post. Karius touches it, and it hits the post and bounces back to the keeper!
18 mins: Firmino dramatically goes over a sliding Sevilla challenge, five yards outside the penalty area. The referee tells him to get up.
17 mins: Lovren goes on a run down the right wing, is picked out, and then tries to dance around Lenglet. His right-winger impression isn’t great, though, and he ends up losing control of the ball and bungling it into touch.
16 mins: Salah is robbed in his own half by Escudero. Nothing much comes of it, but the visitors’ attempts at high-speed rapid-passing escapes from their own defence are causing danger only to themselves at the moment.
15 mins: Escudero doesn’t so much make a meal of a Joe Gomez challenge but opens an entire restaurant chain of it. It was basically no challenge at all. The referee isn’t fooled.
14 mins: Nice to see Nolito in action again. I’ve always enjoyed his resemblance to Jamie Woon.
13 mins: Nolito finds Escudero in space with a nice little pass, and Escudero attempts to blast the ball inside the near post from an acute angle, and hits wide.
Roberto Firmino in 2017/18:
— WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) November 21, 2017
Champions League: 4 goals in 5
Premier League: 3 goals in 12 #UCL
9 mins: Benega disects Liverpool’s two-man defensive midfield with a lovely pass to Sarabia, who then messes everything up by mishitting a pass straight out of play.
8 mins: Lightning doesn’t strike twice: Rico comes out to punch this one to safety.
8 mins: Mane motors down the inside left channel, fails to spot Salah to his right and instead has a shot from the edge of the area, which is deflected wide. Liverpool have their second corner.
7 mins: A prolonged period of high-tempo midfield to-and-fro, which ends for now with Lovren chesting the ball back to Karius.
4 mins: Back at Anfield Sevilla took the lead in the fifth minute, and thought they’d started well. Pah.
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GOAL! Sevilla 0-1 Liverpool (Firmino, 2 mins)
And it leads to a goal! Coutinho sends in a lovely, pacey, dipping cross, Wijnaldum flicks on at the near post, and Firmino crashes in at the far!
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2 mins: An early corner for Liverpool, won by Mane on the right.
1 min: Peeeeeep! The home side get the game started.
Before the teams emerged there was a fine light show, or rather a lack of light show, as the stadium lights were dimmed but for a few coloured spotlights. Up with this kind of thing.
impressive pre-match lights and club anthem in Sevilla, eye to eye with Anfield I have to admit #sevliv @Simon_Burnton
— Marc (@_LeMarc) November 21, 2017
The players are out, and currently enjoying the Champions League anthem.
Jurgen Klopp has had a pre-match chat:
I think Hoffenheim had a longer [unbeaten] run before we came there. We know how strong they are, how special the atmosphere is here. I tried to prepare the boys for it and we’ll see how they handle it, but it’s special, 100%.
[The first game, drawn 2-2] was one of our best games we played. We should have scored much more often and the goals we conceded were, well, like the goals we conceded so far. It was a really good game. The performance, when was it, six weeks ago, was already really good. Of course we need to do better tonight. This is their home ground, we need to do the right things in the moment, we need to fight, really fight, be aggressive, but not too aggressive. We have grown since then, and that’s the reason we have the chance to go in the next round.
I was not, with all the games, unhappy [with the defence]. It’s not that I think we can never concede a goal any more, unfortunately. There will be a few challenges for us tonight. They are good, really experienced, and they use this special atmosphere. It’s different to England, it’s different to Germany, so whoever’s here tonight, enjoy it.
Sevilla’s away dressing room is a little furniture-light, isn’t it?
Inside the away dressing room at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán... pic.twitter.com/KoJ7uzUfAb
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) November 21, 2017
“Watching the pre-match feed, I saw them showing many members of the crowd wearing white watch-like wristbands,” writes Mark Imrie. “What are they?” Anyone?
So two changes for Liverpool: Loris Karius, who has played every Champions League game this season, replaces Simon Mignolet in goal, and Joe Gomez comes in at right back, replacing Trent Alexander-Arnold.
The teams!
The team sheets are in, and they look like this:
Sevilla: Sergio Rico, Mercado, Geis, Lenglet, Escudero, Nzonzi, Banega, Pizarro, Sarabia, Ben Yedder, Nolito. Subs: Soria, Corchia, Krohn-Dehli, Correa, Jesus Navas, Muriel, Vazquez.
Liverpool: Karius, Gomez, Lovren, Klavan, Moreno, Wijnaldum, Henderson, Coutinho, Salah, Firmino, Mane. Subs: Mignolet, Milner, Sturridge, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Can, Solanke, Alexander-Arnold.
Referee: Felix Brych (Germany)
ONCE del #SevillaFC ante el @LFCEspanol @LigadeCampeones #vamosmisevilla #UCL pic.twitter.com/lYHfHq7JXR
— Sevilla Fútbol Club (@SevillaFC) November 21, 2017
📋 The Reds to take on @SevillaFC_ENG... pic.twitter.com/iTz4geVoI8
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) November 21, 2017
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Hello world!
So, the Champions League comes roaring back, with Liverpool attempting to atone for a slightly irritating 2-2 home draw in which, to quote Andy Hunter’s match report, “Liverpool dominated for long periods and recovered impressively from conceding an early goal to a wily Sevilla side but, and it is a recurring theme, individual and collective defensive lapses showed the Champions League what the Premier League has long suspected – that Klopp has constructed an exhilarating attacking force on weak foundations.”
It won’t be an easy task. Seville have a 100% home record in Group E, and have won six of their last eight European home matches, last losing on – telling date coming, omen fans – 22 November 2016. Liverpool, meanwhile, have lost on their last three visits to Spain and always by the same score, 1-0.
A win would carry Liverpool into the knock-out stages. They have conceded considerably fewer goals than Sevilla – three to the Spaniards’ eight – and scored considerably more – 13 to their eight – but for all that have but a single point more going into the game. With a fair wind behind it it should all be tremendous fun. Welcome! Let’s share these happy times together.
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