To the victor belongs the spoils
Tonight’s winners will play Bayern Munich or Real Madrid in the semi-final, with the first leg at home on 28 or 29 April. The second leg is on 5 or 6 May.
“Hi Rob!” begins Joe Pearson. “‘If we can do it, wonderful. If not, then fail in the most beautiful way.’ With a nod to Jurgen Klopp, I have no expectations, only hope. Sigh.”
“Liverpool have been in a cloud of melancholy at times, having to get on with the day job of fulfilling dreams while suffering an acute loss with no time to mourn,” writes Ian Copsestake. “It used to be that such mental distress was treated with a sea journey. There’s even a new book about its history. But absurdly it is Liverpool who are tasked with lifting us, and on that voyage I wish them pure joy.”
Ian is too modest/English/English to add that he is the author of the book, Madness and the Sea, which looks fascinating.
When Warren Zaïre-Emery ran the show as a 17-year-old in a 3-0 win against Milan, Thierry Henry said “the sky is the limit” for the Paris Saint-Germain midfielder. His stratospheric rise led him too close to the sun, though, and the crash back down to Earth was a rude one. But he has since dusted himself off.
Liverpool Van Dijk, Mac Allister, Gravenberch, Jones.
Paris Saint-Germain Nuno Mendes, Kvaratskhelia.
Arne Slot has said that Alexander Isak won’t be able to play much more than 45 minutes. Interesting. I guess the logic of starting him is that, if you bring him off the bench, the match could go to extra-time.
Luis García was “super cool”, he says. That, at least, was the plan, but things have a habit of working out differently. When the former Atlético Madrid, Barcelona and Liverpool player retired in 2016, it was the second time: he walked out of the game in 2014 and walked back in again six months later. But this time, he wasn’t going to be affected. All that suffering and satisfaction, the pressure, the emotion: that was no more.
“I was always very competitive and once I had left football, I thought I wasn’t going to have those feelings I had before,” he says. “I still enjoy football, still play seven-a-side with my friends – every Saturday at 10am, Los Jareños Club de Futbol – but I thought I had lost that and it wasn’t coming back. In fact, I was trying to avoid it; I didn’t want it. So when it happened, it surprised me. I didn’t expect football to give me that again. But there I was, crying.”
It was mid-February in Iskandar Puteri, Malaysia, and the players García was watching celebrating a historic win were his, the feeling shared. “When I saw them jumping with joy, having been with them every day, sharing the long journeys, from Malaysia to Vietnam and back, on to Japan, and then saw them win I got that emotion again.”
“Disappointed that Ngumoha isn’t starting,” writes Patrick Crumlish. “Played so well at weekend and has something most of the team are lacking - confidence.”
Yeah, I’d have started him, both for his obvious ability and the impact it would have on the crowd.
“There’s a strong argument that Liverpool were the better side in the first leg at Camp Nou in 2019,” writes Niall Mullen. “Certainly 3-0 massively flattered Barca. Unfortunately 2-0 to PSG a week ago massively flattered Liverpool and, I’d argue, this PSG team is better than the 2019 Barca team while this Liverpool team is considerably worse than that Liverpool team. Which all adds up to say that sometimes even magic nights at Anfield sometimes crash into the cold concrete wall of reality. I suspect this tie will be over well before half-time.”
That’s a great point about the first leg in Barcelona in 2019.
Tonight’s other quarter-final is in Madrid, where Atletico have a 2-0 aggregate lead over Barcelona. You can follow that with Will Unwin.
Alexander Isak starts a Liverpool game for the first time since December, replacing Joe Gomez in the only change from the first leg. Mo Salah and Rio Ngumoha, who scored against Fulham at the weekend, are on the bench.
PSG are unchanged, because why would you change that XI?
Liverpool (possible 4-D-2) Mamardashvili; Frimpong, Konate, Van Dijk, Kerkez; Gravenberch; Szoboszlai, Mac Allister; Wirtz; Isak, Ekitike.
Subs: Woodman, Misciur, Gomez, Jones, Chiesa, Salah, Robertson, Nyoni, Nallo, Ngumoha.
Paris Saint-Germain (4-3-3) Chevalier; Hakimi, Marquinhos, Pacho, Nuno Mendes; Zaire-Emery, Vitinha, Joao Neves; Doue, Dembele, Kvaratskhelia.
Subs: Chevalier, Marin, Lucas Beraldo, Zabarnyi, Goncalo Ramos, Lee, L Hernandez, Mayulu, Dro Fernandez, Barcola, Mbaye.
Referee Maurizio Mariani (Italy).
Arne Slot has said Liverpool do not face an impossible task against Paris Saint-Germain but must produce the perfect performance to overcome the European champions in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Liverpool require another stirring Anfield comeback in Tuesday’s second leg to salvage their hopes of silverware having lost 2-0 at Parc des Princes last week. PSG were vastly superior in the first leg and should have won more comfortably, although their head coach, Luis Enrique, described such talk as “a trap” and claimed there will be “pitfalls” for his team at Anfield.
Slot and Dominik Szoboszlai exuded confidence at the pre-match press conference on Monday, with the Liverpool head coach insisting it will not be difficult to instil belief in his players for a make-or-break night at Anfield.
Right, where shall we start? Saint-Etienne 1977, perhaps, the first epic European comeback at Anfield. Maybe Auxerre 1991 or Dortmund 2016, when Liverpool made a mockery of apparently insurmountable deficits. “The stadium seemed to know what would happen,” winced Dortmund’s manager Thomas Tuchel after Dejan Lovren scored an injury-time winner. “It was as if it was meant to be.”
Barcelona 2019 is the ultimate, a 4-0 win with a weakened team that still blows the mind seven years on. Those precedents – and the knowledge that Anfield is a unique microclimate – are sources of hope for Liverpool as they strive for another glorious comeback against Paris Saint-Germain tonight.
There’s also a nagging fear that the only relevant precedent is last week’s first leg, when PSG ran Liverpool ragged and should have won by more than 2-0. Even the staunchest Kopite might concede that PSG are a class apart, and all logic says they will cruise into a semi-final against Bayern Munich and Real Madrid.
Oh, just one more thing: logic and European nights at Anfield don’t always see eye to eye.
