As Liverpool prepare to face Paris Saint-Germain this evening the weight of pressure on Reds boss Arne Slot seems heavier than it ever has been before.
Saturday's 4-0 defeat to Manchester City in the FA Cup, Liverpool's heaviest loss under Slot, represented a line in the sand for many supporters, and speculation over the Dutchman's future is now rife.
Bit where Liverpool and the Champions League are concerned, that is nothing new.
What's more, there was once an occasion where it was being claimed that a Reds boss had quit in the hours leading up to a game against a European heavyweight.
Liverpool has always loved the rumour mill, but by February 2009 things seemed to have escalated to new proportions.
The growth of social media and betting markets meant that when a rumour spread around the city it had the potential to move far further than that, taking hold in a manner it would do in few other places.
WhatsApp groups and mischievous intent have only increased such incidents in the intervening decade-and-a-half, but for the original and best tale you really do have to go back to that day over 17 years ago when Merseyside and Madrid were linked.
"The level of interest in Rafa getting the sack is unprecedented with over 300 calls logged today (Wednesday) alone," shouted the William Hill press release. "We would be very surprised if Rafa is still the Liverpool boss by midnight on Sunday."
That Wednesday wasn't just any old Wednesday though, it was the day that Rafa Benitez was taking his Liverpool side into a Champions League last-16 tie against Real Madrid at the Santiago Bernabeu, the club of his dreams and the city he called home.
Liverpool were in superb form too. Having lost at Tottenham at the beginning of November, their only defeats in 23 matches spanning the turn of the year had come in the domestic cups.
It was a run that had reignited talk of the Premier League title, and seen the Reds progress in the Champions League and towards this meeting with the Spanish giants. But inside the club there was chaos.
This was, of course, the Liverpool of Tom Hicks and George Gillett, and a club of mounting tensions ever since it became abundantly clear that the two American owners didn't have anything like the money they had promised they had when they pitched up at Anfield two years previously.
Just over a year earlier there was outcry when the Liverpool Echo managed to get Hicks to admit that they'd approached Jurgen Klinsmann to potentially replace Liverpool's 2005 Champions League winning manager, and Benitez had grown fond of making pointed references to his dissatisfaction with the running of the club in press conferences.
By January 2009, a month before the Madrid trip, talk around a contract extension for the manager had reached fever pitch.
Benitez had rejected the first offer on the table because it removed his level of control over transfers, and the negotiations were extremely tense.
"Hopefully [there will be a resolution], but we will see," he said before a Merseyside derby at Anfield.
"The first time, when the owners spoke to me about an extension, I said I wanted to do it in one week. We have been [talking] for two months, it was not my idea and I didn't want to do this. So now I will finish and we can concentrate on football.
"I already have an agreement with one club. And it is Liverpool Football Club for a year and a half."
But with Real's interest in Benitez clear, everything was ramped up when the clubs were set to meet each other in the Champions League.
Juande Ramos, briefly of Tottenham, was something of a lame duck in situ at the club, and when Liverpool touched down in Madrid there was only one set of questions that the Spanish media wanted answering. The Liverpool manager was was refusing to play ball though.
"They have 11 good players and are very dangerous so it is more important to focus on them than other things," he said.
"They are my friends here and I have good memories with them. The delegate on the door is the same delegate as when I was here as a player and a coach.
"But I am a professional so I want to win with my team. It is just about winning a Champions League game against a top side in Europe."
Winning was going to be more difficult without the injured Steven Gerrard, who was set to only be fit enough for a place on the bench, but by the day of the game the players on the pitch were the last thing on everyone's minds.
Back then the notion of online bookies no longer taking bets on something due to a rush of money was still rather new, and as the rumour that Benitez had resigned spread around Liverpool like wildfire, there was genuine interest over whether or not he'd be taking his seat in the dugout that night.
Some were adamant that he'd gone, with assistant Sammy Lee set to take charge of the team and perhaps aided on the bench by experienced substitutes Gerrard and Sami Hyypia.
There was a surprise to some, then, when the manager emerged for his pre-match press duties at the Bernabeu, and then took his seat on the side of the pitch. But if Liverpool had been unsettled by the speculation then they didn't show it.
Captained by Jamie Carragher in Gerrard's absence, this was a classic Liverpool away European performance under Benitez.
Carragher and Martin Skrtel marshalled the defence expertly, and in front of them Javier Mascherano and Xabi Alonso - who saw a halfway line shot tipped over by Iker Casillas - dominated midfield.
A goalless draw would have been a fine result for Liverpool, but the night was garnished when Yossi Benayoun headed home Fabio Aurelio's free-kick eight minutes from time. Reds fans had spent the day wondering if they'd lost their manager, but now they'd seen their team win at the Bernabeu. Everyone was beside themselves, except Benitez.
"It was madness in our changing rooms and I had to take my mobile phone into the toilets to call my family," said Benayoun.
"It was the only way I could make myself heard. Everyone was screaming and shouting, except for the manager, of course. He was his usual calm self.
"He didn't even congratulate us or shake hands, never mind join in all the hugs and backslapping that was going on. That's just how he is. He is very professional and he wants us to be the same all the time.
"He won't stand for any of us getting carried away or feeling we are superior to anyone else. My wife and young children had been jumping up and down with excitement, watching at home, but he didn't say a word to me about the goal."
So did Benitez have other things on his mind then? Maybe he was eyeing the exit after all?
"I was very surprised to hear rumours that I was going to resign," he calmly said after the win, washing away mass Merseyside panic in an instant.
"I can assure you that I have not been considering such a move, and it was a shock to hear such suggestions.
"It needs to be clear that I was not thinking of resigning. My aim is to keep working and winning and to tell the owners that on the pitch."
Liverpool would beat Real 4-0 on the Anfield pitch two weeks later in a statement performance seen around the world, including those Texas and Wisconsin mansions inhabited by Hicks and Gillett.
Benitez signed a new contract one week later.
Presumably the bookies were less surprised by then.
*A version of this article first appeared on Mirror Football on April 5, 2021*
