« on: March 11, 2020, 06:40:39 pm »
Head-to-Head Meetings22/10/2008: Atlético 1-1 Liverpool [CL Group Stages] (Simão; Keane)
04/11/2008: Liverpool 1-1 Atlético [CL Group Stages] (Gerrard pen; Maxi Rodriguez)
22/04/2010: Atlético 1-0 Liverpool [EL Semi-Final First-Leg] (Forlan)
29/04/2010: Liverpool 2-1 Atlético
AET [EL Semi-Final Second-Leg] (Aquilani, Benayoun; Forlan)
Liverpool's first visit to the Wanda Metropolitano since winning number 6, and a special occasion deserves a special preview. Trendisdestiny and E2K have got you covered RAWK 
[Trend] Introduction
Hello RAWKites! Once again we begin another journey following the greatest team in the world in the Champions League. Welcome back, as it has been just a minute, it seems, as the last tie we participated in was one for the ages. Another Spanish sports car, this time from the hills of Catalonia, meets its end at the fiery cauldron, abyss of Anfield Road 4-0.
In the end, our sixth date with destiny’s big ears was memorable for all that this team overcame. All of the pain, tears, and emotion fueled our rise to the top of Europe. What a ride it has been.
But readers, please make no mistake here. The mighty reds are about to return a different kind of 'Wanda’, not the one where so many our dreams were realized, but one, possibly, that could break our hearts and leave us with questions we do not want nor need.
You might say that "mattress movers" cannot beat us over two legs and that our bunch of red players are even hungrier for a 7th Heaven or what I like to call the “King’s Ransom”, holding the world of football hostage to a permanent red mist of dominance percolating throughout Europe.
Even more, karma may be on the reds side as well due to a series of events this season that has unfolded to make this much sweeter than anticipated:
1. Thus far, total and complete league dominance from LFC
2. The recent ECL penalties against Man City, if upheld
3. Rivals capitulation – competitors bitter about our perch
4. The way we are conducting our business on the pitch and off,
From my vantage point here in Washington, DC area, across the pond, I see a team, a club, a group of players, and passionate supporters unrivaled in this sport. We are clicking, unified and ready to extend this dominance. The music, the laughter, and blissful play of our boys is a force not equaled in a long time – all pointing to the rosy smell of victory.
However, Athleti now is only a few days away, and I remember last years' journey was like a beautiful swan. What happened on the surface of our success and the work completed below the surface were two very different systems. To beat Atletico Madrid in this tie, we are going to have to, once again, reach into our liverbird souls to pull out the beauty of how we can work together. This OP will examine a few themes for the reds visit back to Wanda on Tuesday:
- Wanda-Lust or A Fish Called Wanda
- First Blood – who scores first is crucial
[Trend] Wanda-Lust or A Fish Called Wanda
There have been few happier moments in the last decade than the moment the whistle blew in Madrid. Thank Fowler! For many, the enjoyment of what this season has brought us in the joy, mirth, and happiness departments is difficult to put effectively into individual words. It means more.
There was even a scouser on a ladder in a g-string sharing his excitement with the parade of events associated with a win at Wanda.
However, if we look back for a quick snapshot of the game, we know how crucial the 2nd minute penalty against Sissoko was for us. Mo Salah buries it to take a vital early lead. Divock puts the final touches at the end by clinching the win and adding to his cult hero worship. In the final, Spurs were always “swimming upstream” against the current for most of the game.
For some reason, I am drawn to the fishing analogy for Athleti, as it fits the stadium and the task.
We cannot get lured into a slow, plodding match, where they dictate play. We should play to our natural attacking strengths. This is not the Athleti of old as you will see below.
Are we going perform as the dominant apex predator that we are? Mentality monsters hunting Madrid with Wanda lust?
Or do we match their attitude, keep it tight and try to win it at home?
Or might we make things difficult for ourselves?
The first half hour should tell us a lot about these questions. My money is on the reds, and watch out for falling safes and Virgil Van Dijk. My prediction is that there will be blood.
[Trend] First Blood
There are four significant opponent trends, all point to the importance of the first goal.
Woulda Should Coulda Wanda
11 of Athleti’s 30 games in the league/ECL have ended in draws (35%). Typically, a higher percentage from top teams usually is due to allowing soft goals or not finishing the opportunities presented – although there could be other explanations we might examine as well. In terms of winning, 13/30 (43%) result in victories will not have Simeone happy.
Red, White & First Blood Red
Second, the deeper trend has to do with scoring for Los Rojiblancos. In two-thirds of their games, they are either get shutout or score only once, as their most frequent score lines tend to be 0-0, 1-1, or 1-0/0-1 (50% of the time). Keeping the result close is not only a part of their tactics, but a weird part of their team personality. They have scored more than 2 goals only twice all season in league/ECL competitions.
Athleti Winds of Change – More Ties, Less Goals, Same Tactics
Thirdly, departures, Injuries, goal scorers and attacking flexibility have altered the effectiveness of Athleti on both sides of the ball, but not their temperament. Players who have left include Godin, Rodri, Felipe Luis, and Antoine Griezmann. New players have yet to really take off, such as Joao Felix and Thomas Lemar. Injuries have stricken the top and bottom of the pitch with their best CB, Giminez struggling with muscle issues, Trippier looks to be out for the tie, and Diego “Rambo” Costa just coming back into the side.
Their most consistent performers have played all over the pitch with Koke, Thomas, Correa, Vitolo, Correa, and Herrera used strategically in various wide/central midfield configurations and sometimes used in concert with Morata up top. Think alternating and flexible parts with these lot, but imagine how difficult it would be string together consistent results?
Good Defensive Shape
Lastly, their defensive shape is effective. They do not frequently allow early goals, putting their team under pressure in the league. The Champions League matches are bit different, quicker players and more effective attacks --- where they have been suspect at times. They traded wins with Bayern Leverkusen, and beat Locomotiv Moscow twice, lucky to tie Juventus at Wanda with a late equalizing goal on a restart.
What does this mean?
Odds are, we’ll see a tight one-goal game with an above average chance that the game ends in a draw (either scoreless or 1-1). If the game allows for chances, goals, and transition, it looks like this may favor our reds as they rarely score above 2 goals.
Whomever scores first will have a big advantage in this game, maybe more so than other games in the Champions League. This is how Athleti prefer to win (grinding) and they know how to use the dark arts as E2K smartly details. For me, this is the biggest issue. Can we score first, get an away goal and put pressure on Athleti to win in a very different type of game. Liverpool can win in a variety of ways, but I am not so sure that Simeone’s men can or will. So, it is incumbent upon us to take away the stifling 1-0 Athleti shithouse elbow, dive, and restart goal style of game.
They’ll be ready for us and we should avoid getting over-confident now, but we should remember they have some disparate parts (CB pairing can be got after, little mobile fire hydrants like Koke, Vitolo, Saul Niguez are good on the ball – avoid diving in or giving them too space on the counter, and their forwards may be a bit rusty).
We need to put them under pressure in terms of defending right away (as cautions may be a big issue in this tie) and have an attacking mindset. This author thinks two goals puts us in a good position, even maybe one but we know that is squeaky bum time for all.
Odds say the game will end in a draw, or a narrow victory. We score first and possibly twice, I think we will be alright.
What do you think how this game might play out?
[E2K] Removing every other metric and focussing solely on the art of keeping the ball out of the net, arguably the two best goalkeepers in the world go head-to-head in this one. Alisson is the more rounded of the two in terms of how he does, and is expected to do, his job in Liverpool’s system. However, it’s telling that the Atlético chairman talked up his side’s chances against the European and World Champions by simply referencing their last line of defence: “They are a great team, but we have Oblak”. An immoveable object, then; but will he be able to withstand the irresistible force of Liverpool’s attack? And will Atlético muster enough at the other end to trouble Brazil’s number one?
Brian Clough once said the following of Peter Shilton, the goalkeeper with whom he won the English League Championship, a League Cup, two European Cups and a European Super Cup at Nottingham Forest: “A team with an OK goalkeeper is always looking over its shoulder. At the back of its mind, it’s thinking ‘It doesn’t matter what we do — the fella between the posts might make a mistake.’ With Shilton in goal, it gave everyone else more confidence. It spread throughout the side. We were full of ourselves. The defenders felt safer, and the forwards thought if we could nick a goal, there was more than an evens chance that the opposition wouldn’t score at the other end. That’s how you win titles, and that’s how we won ours.” Clough, ordinarily arrogant to a fault, even went so far as to credit Shilton with winning the league for Forest: “He was the difference — honest. He made the fewest mistakes of anyone, including the management.”
For only the second time in the Premier League era, Liverpool are similarly enjoying the security afforded by having a world-class, undisputed number one between the sticks. Too often over the years, there has been a “competition”. And whether it was David James vs. 35 year-old Bruce Grobbelaar or (later) Brad Friedel in the 1990s, Jerzy Dudek vs. Chris Kirkland (both signed on the same day) in the 2000s, or Simon Mignolet vs. Brad Jones and Loris Karius in the 2010s, the truth has invariably been that if there is a competition for the spot, you really don’t have a number one at all — just a couple of number two’s doing their best impression, at least at the very highest level. If Clough was right about top goalkeepers winning you league titles, and I think he was, then it’s probably no surprise that Liverpool’s title drought has lasted three decades, or that their highest points totals in the Premier League era have come with Alisson Becker (97 in 2018/19) and Pepe Reina (86 in 2008/09) between the posts.
Ironically, the club’s current back-up would have arguably been good enough to start on many of those less successful Liverpool teams over the years, certainly judging by his performances in relief of Alisson this season. But much like Reina permanently took Dudek’s place mere weeks after the Pole’s Istanbul heroics and held onto the position for 8 years (domestic cup games and a suspension for putting Arjen Robben in hospital aside), Adrián, a capable number one himself by all appearances, has immediately returned to the bench just as soon as the Brazilian has been available this season.
That is because, quite aside from his price tag, there are few visible chinks in the Alisson Becker armour. A failed attempt to dribble his way out of trouble at Leicester and a spilled cross at home to Manchester United, both in 2018, are about the extent of his errors to date as a Liverpool player. Even the sending-off against Brighton in November was less a mistake than an inevitable consequence of asking your goalkeeper to play so aggressively. Front-foot ‘keepers will inevitably drop a clanger every now and then — see also Ederson vs. Mo Salah (2018) and Manuel Neuer vs. Sadio Mané (2019) — and it could be argued that he still had the presence of mind to reach out a hand and stop the visitors from scoring a certain goal, Lewis Dunk’s subsequent Martin Atkinson-assisted free-kick notwithstanding.
Leaving aside his natural attributes, which anyone with a pair of functioning eyeballs can see, the most important quality Alisson has brought to this team is certainty, an absolute must for any high-functioning defensive unit. Panic used to spread throughout Liverpool’s defence like a pandemic, and patient zero was so often the goalkeeper, going back at least as far as James and arguably beyond (I was watching the 1986 FA Cup final recently and it reminded me, if I needed reminding, that Grobbelaar could be unreliable too). The arrivals of Andy Robertson and Virgil Van Dijk into the first-XI from December 2017 onwards, as well as the rapid development of Trent Alexander-Arnold, have also been key factors in the evolution of the Premier League’s best defence. But Alisson’s consistency and leadership has allowed a level of trust to flourish that hasn’t been there since the early days of Reina, such that even disappointing goals conceded or tough spells in games can be easily isolated and weathered. And all the while, opposition teams who used to feast on erratic Liverpool goalkeeping have been made to starve.
Reina was the last Liverpool goalkeeper to trouble the record books, and it is no coincidence that Liverpool’s run of clean sheets over December and January this season was the best the club had managed since 2006. The major difference is that Reina was part of a team built to defend first; Klopp’s side, although far more measured in their approach now than they were following his arrival in 2015, is primarily built to attack, to score goals. A rough comparison of the respective defensive lines will tell you that much: Jamie Carragher would have had fits if he was asked to operate that far up the pitch during Reina’s time, and I don’t think Sami Hyypiä would have been best pleased at that stage of his career either.
Nonetheless, despite being part of a primarily offensive team, Alisson eclipsed Reina’s club record for clean sheets in a Premier League season (20) during his first campaign in England (22). He also had the highest save percentage amongst Premier League goalkeepers last season (77.1%) and leads the way again so far in 2019/20 with 87%, more than 10% ahead of his nearest competitor at the time of writing (Dean Henderson, who also plays in a defence-first team). The steaming desperation of some to dismiss Liverpool’s achievements this season as mere “luck” conveniently ignores many factors, none more so than the best goalkeeper in the world (officially, according to FIFA) missing 9 Premier League and Champions League games between August and October due to injury. Liverpool have kept 13 clean sheets out of 32 Premier League and European games so far this season: 11 of those (85%) are Alisson’s and have all been achieved since the start of December, the Brazilian now top of the Golden Gloves rankings despite missing two months of the season.
He does, of course, have a superb defence in front of him as well, one that has conceded a single goal in its last 11 league games and a Premier League-best 15 in all this season (average = around 0.6 per game). Europe has been rather different (8 conceded in 6 games, for an average of 1.3 per game), but Liverpool finished with a clean sheet against RB Salzburg (2-0) when it really mattered. It should also be noted that Alisson missed the first two games against Napoli (0-2) and Salzburg (4-3), which accounted for over half of the goals they conceded in the group stage.
So where does that leave Atlético? Well, let’s return to Clough again: “Just imagine you’re a centre forward. You get round Lloyd and Burns, or you beat Anderson…and then you have the job of trying to put the ball past Shilton. It’s like a bank robber who finds that, once he’s inside the bank, there are so many locks and bolts on the vault that he might as well give up and go home.” The Spaniards will first need to battle their way through a midfield that’s as physical, battle-hardened and tactically-astute as any in this competition. If they do get past the likes of Jordan Henderson, Gini Wijnaldum and Fabinho, they will then face one of the meanest defences in football that has somehow found a way to be miserly even while two of its number spend much of their time in the opposition half, anchored by unquestionably the best defender in the world. And if they manage to find a chink in that armour, they will need to find a way past a goalkeeper who has been saving shots at a rate of 87% in what is arguably Europe’s toughest league.
For context, this means that the Brazilian is effectively conceding about 3 goals for every 20 shots on target that he faces. The last time Atlético faced a Champions League-calibre team was their Madrid derby defeat on the 1st of February (they managed 1 shot on target); before that it was Real again in the final of the Supercopa in January (they managed 5 shots on target against their city rivals, including extra-time). That gives a total of 6 shots on target over two games against a team that has plenty in common with Liverpool (i.e. both leading their domestic leagues, both recent champions of Europe). Even if Atlético were to match those figures during the tie against Liverpool, which is questionable in itself, there is statistically a good chance that Alisson saves all of them. In fact, they might have to triple that total to even score once.
Atlético is also a team that has struggled to score goals generally this season. The Spaniards have found the back of the net 37 times in 33 games so far in all competitions (i.e. La Liga, Copa del Rey, Champions League, Supercopa), for an average of just over a goal a game. They’ve drawn blanks in 11 of those (exactly one-third), and have only scored more than twice on 3 occasions out of 33 (or just under one-tenth of their games). Their struggles in front of goal even opened the door for lowly Cultural Leonesa to knock a fairly strong side out of the Copa de Rey last month.
Álvaro Morata, he of the disappointing spell at Chelsea, is their top scorer with 10 goals; the next best are Ángel Correa (6) and João Félix (4). That return from Félix, who has contributed a similarly meagre number of assists, is a thundering disappointment after costing in the region of £113m from Benfica. Meanwhile, manager Diego Simeone appears to have already checked out on another expensive arrival, £52m former Liverpool target Thomas Lemar, saying recently: “He has not met the expectations set for him.” Having undergone back surgery earlier in the season, another familiar face, Diego Costa, may return for at least part of this tie (2 goals from 15 games so far), but Atlético are highly unlikely to be prolific either way.
In this context, Cerezo’s defiant declaration (“They are a great team, but we have Oblak”) makes a lot of sense. Out of 32 League and European games this season, Liverpool have been held scoreless just once (away to Napoli in September). Only Napoli (twice), Sheffield United, Manchester United, Wolves and Tottenham have held them to a single goal, and Liverpool still prevailed in 3 of those 6. They have scored more than twice in about one-third of their games. So given the formbook, Atlético’s hopes of progression to the quarter-finals would appear to hinge on their ability to hold Liverpool to a goal or (at the absolute most) two, and keep a clean sheet at home. But such are Atlético’s struggles in front of goal, as well as Liverpool’s recent stinginess, that even holding the likes of Mo Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino to a single goal in 180 minutes might still result in a defeat.
Any aggregate score that involves the Spaniards dethroning the European champions is therefore likely to be “1-0” or “1-1”, and regardless of how organised and defensively drilled they are, such a scenario would almost certainly involve heroics from their goalkeeper. Oblak was heavily linked with a move to Liverpool before the club signed Alisson, of course, and Klopp even referenced him specifically upon the Brazilian’s arrival (“Everybody thinks it’s a lot of money. It is a lot of money, but he could have left for crazy money. The clause for Oblak for example is €100m.”) Known for his spectacular saves, to the point where a veritable library of YouTube compilations now exists, it does make you wonder what’s going on over at the Metropolitano that he is obliged to keep himself so active.
One thing is for sure, Liverpool are unlikely to be given anything cheap by the Slovenian. Klopp’s men have occasionally been less than clinical in front of goal this season (Sheffield United away, Manchester United at home spring readily to mind), and anything not placed into the corner with power is unlikely to get past Oblak. So let’s hope the Reds have their shooting boots on, because they might not get that many clear-cut chances against a team like Atlético.
[E2K] Somebody once said, in the aftermath of the 2018 Champions League final, that “successive Liverpool teams going back years have been comparative choirboys next to their major rivals” and that “it would be nice to see that side of the team evolving to become a nastier, more intimidating prospect from here on out.” Ok, it was me, but I certainly wasn’t the only one expressing those sentiments. Having faced, and overcome, the unique cynicism of South/Central American football recently against Monterrey and Flamengo, Liverpool now go up against its most adept practitioner in Europe, Atlético manager Diego Simeone. Leaving aside their obvious footballing talent, do Jürgen Klopp’s players have the necessary composure and resolve (both mentally and physically) to prevail against one of the most devious and ruthless teams in world football?
Short answer, yes. Long answer…
If we had asked this question on the evening of 26th May 2018, the response would have had to be a resounding no. On the evidence of the intervening 20 months, the opposite now appears to be the case. I think our hopes were answered post-Kiev. I think something did change in the psychological temperament of this team. I think those players, coaches and manager left the Ukrainian capital with their eyes well and truly opened. I think they toughened up, and the results of that transformation have been on show pretty much ever since. That’s reassuring in the context of this tie, because Atlético will test every one of those hard-learned street smarts. There is a reason why many of us grimaced when they were drawn as Liverpool’s opponents for this tie, and it has far less to do with the talent in their ranks than the trademark deviousness of their approach.
In his biography of Diego Maradona, Jimmy Burns described the reaction back in Argentina to the infamous “Hand of God” goal against England at the 1986 World Cup: “That the goal, far from being condemned, was actually applauded by his fellow countrymen, was a reminder of how Argentines have traditionally always put their own interpretation on the notion of gamesmanship. The goal, particularly given that it was scored against the English, was viewed as a display of viveza, that quality of craftiness so admired in Argentina.”
Needless to say, the reaction of English and neutral observers around the world was rather different — for them, it was simply cheating. For Maradona and his compatriots, however, it was a victory over a crooked system, less an isolated example of breaking the rules (perhaps like Thierry Henry against Ireland in 2009) and more a fundamental approach to football and life. Writer Brian Phillips, in a profile of the player last October, described it as “legitimized dishonesty”, where “you’re in on the fact that the ultimate scam is honesty”. From an Argentinian perspective, Maradona had been kicked out of a World Cup four years earlier without a single official lifting a finger to curb the worst excesses of the likes of Claudio Gentile. And moving away from the football pitch, their country had recently suffered a defeat in the Falklands War against Britain that the ordinary rank-and-file citizen considered grossly unjust. So in other words: what right did anyone have to criticise Maradona (or Argentina) when all he did was cheat them before they got the chance to cheat him?
This is a concept that should still be kneading the gut of every Liverpool supporter post-Kiev, by the way. Sergio Ramos may be European rather than Argentinian, but his decorated career is the very embodiment of the notion that “the ultimate scam is honesty”. He is the most sent-off player in the history of Europe’s top five leagues, and his key interventions in the 2018 Champions League final on Salah and Karius would have landed him in court on assault charges had he committed them on a Sunday League pitch. Yet there he was at the end, lifting a fourth European Cup in five years to go with his World Cup, his two European Championships and the rest, while Salah and Karius wept.
So Liverpool have been on the receiving end of viveza, or at least its European equivalent, in the recent past. Now they face a team similarly well-versed in “legitimized dishonesty”. Simeone’s act of simulation against England in 1998 that got David Beckham sent off was precisely the same kind of behaviour. Former Argentina captain Roberto Perfumo subsequently characterised it like this: “English players are more naïve. Our game is more calculating.” And there are few teams in world football that have been more “calculating”, to use Perfumo’s euphemism, over the past decade than Atlético Madrid.
In many ways their success under Simeone (i.e. breaking the El Clásico duopoly in La Liga, reaching two Champions League finals) has been refreshing, a throwback to a time when defensive excellence still meant something and clubs with fewer resources could bother the likes of Barcelona and Real Madrid. But this is also a ruthless team built very much in its manager’s image, one that will test every last drop of resolve and poise in Liverpool’s ranks across this tie. To quote the words that a YouTube cartoon put in Simeone’s mouth last year: “To get a red card for violent conduct is easy; to get your opponent sent off for doing nothing, that is the work of a true asshole!”
It is fair to assume, I think, that an offensive side like Liverpool will attempt to win by having the ball, creating chances and scoring goals. In other words, they won’t go specifically looking for trouble. The more accurate question, then, is whether they will be ready for it when it inevitably comes, because along with the defensive organisation and goalkeeping excellence mentioned earlier, Atlético’s route to victory over the two legs will involve engaging in gamesmanship and hoping that a large proportion of it hits home, whether via the incompetence of the officials or by their opponents losing their composure. So they’ll be laying it on thick, and while there isn’t a whole lot that Liverpool can do to control the referee’s reaction to that, they are the only ones responsible for their own approach.
The recent evidence in this regard is encouraging. Not only did Liverpool overcome some ridiculous tactics before Christmas against both Monterrey (Robertson: “Fuckin’ hell, honestly!?”) and Flamengo (Robertson again: “I’ll get him, don’t worry”), which included some appalling refereeing, Mané’s death stare at Rafinha, and Klopp even offering out the Monterrey manager at one point, perhaps more significantly they did exactly the same against Barcelona last May, a club that has much in common with both Madrid sides.
Liverpool were, of course, excellent against the Catalans in every facet of the game in the second leg (they also had the better of the first leg, even though they lost). They started very well in the 2018 final too, though, didn’t they? Only when Ramos’ assault on Salah succeeded in its intention on 30 minutes did the Spaniards really find their feet in the game, while anyone who has read anything about the NFL’s concussion crisis knows the effect that having his bell rung may have had on Karius with the score still at 0-0 early in the second-half. Liverpool were Real’s equal and more for at least the first 50 minutes of that game, and even came back and equalised through Mané when they did eventually fall behind, despite labouring without their best player and a half-fit Adam Lallana on the pitch. They also hit the post at 1-2. Nonetheless, all Liverpool could do afterwards was to swallow the defeat and all of its circumstances, bitter though it tasted.
Well, nothing was swallowed against Barcelona. Robertson treated possibly the greatest footballer of all-time like last week’s garbage right from the opening whistle, with what you might call a bit of proactive shithousery. Fabinho gladly locked horns with Luis Suárez over something as innocuous as a corner kick. Jordi Alba was the one reduced to tears this time, and then to dust by Alexander-Arnold early in the second-half. Suárez, having kicked Robertson out of the game, was forced to watch slack-jawed as substitute Gini Wijnaldum laid waste to his team’s aggregate lead, all the while his unfortunate neck tattoo adding a touch of farce to television screens around the world. Even the referee wasn’t buying Ter-Stegen’s histrionics after the second. Van Dijk clattered into Messi for the third. And then the ultimate, trousers-around-your-ankles embarrassment (“Corner taken quickly, Origiiiiii!”), scored by an unsung hero, crafted by a mere 20 year-old. It was an indignity only matched by the v-sign comically delivered to Messi later by a pitch invader. Fabinho also threw himself to the ground under pressure from the Argentine late-on as Liverpool sought to kill time.
To put it another way, Liverpool were cynical. Not Diego Maradona, Diego Simeone or Sergio Ramos levels of cynical, and not South/Central American levels of cynical (I don’t mean to tar entire continents with the same brush, by the way, I’m just working with what Monterrey and Flamengo showed me in the Club World Cup), but enough to hold their own. Enough so that Barcelona weren’t able to grift or bully their way to victory on a night when they were second-best all over the pitch and the fine margins mattered more than ever.
Klopp’s players now exhibit the mean streak that every successful team needs; a toughness, a resilience that has too often been absent from their otherwise talented predecessors in the red shirt. As frustrating as it has been to be on the receiving end of the proverbial “dark arts” over the years, arguably the worst part has been the frequent inability or unwillingness of our own teams to give some of it back. Whether that involves manipulating the referee, hitting the deck under contact at opportune moments, wasting time, winding up opponents, physical or verbal intimidation, Liverpool are now able to hold their own in a street-fight in a way that they arguably haven’t been at any point since the club contested 5 European Cup finals in 9 years from 1977 to 1985. Back then, the attitude was that if a team showed up looking for a football contest, Liverpool would beat them. If they showed up looking for a fight, Liverpool would beat them. High-scoring? We’ll out-score you. Defensively dour? We’ll out-defend you. Physical? Oh, you definitely don’t want that…
The supreme hypocrisy at the heart of popular criticism levelled at Salah and Mané for “diving” over the past two years or so, or at Liverpool for tough challenges by, for example, Van Dijk (I’m thinking Dries Mertens) and Robertson (take your pick, the needly bastard 
), is that these are tools in the arsenal of every successful team. From Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid to Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, Carlo Ancelotti’s AC Milan to every single team managed by Jose Mourinho or Pep Guardiola, it feels like the whole world has been “in on the fact that the ultimate scam is honesty” for a very long time. Yet here we are, still being expected to feel bad for playing them at their game a little bit. Do me a favour. This is professional football and it feels like Liverpool have been an 8-cylinder engine firing on a maximum of 7 cylinders for as long as I can remember. Well, no longer.
All of this is bad news for Atlético. Even with the departure of defensive lynchpin Diego Godín in the summer, they remain one of the best-organised sides in world football and have enough in their tank to potentially frustrate Liverpool over 180 (or 210) minutes. However, Jürgen Klopp’s side has become incredibly consistent at dismantling low blocks and, as outlined earlier, Atlético’s attack has had a distinctly blunt look about it this season in the absence of the departed Antoine Griezmann. They may only need to score once, of course, or not at all if they can keep the tie scoreless all the way to a penalty shootout, but the formbook is heavily weighted against them doing that. Not only is Liverpool’s squad is better and deeper, Atlético may also find that the old reliable equaliser of being shithouses may not be as effective as they think.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2020, 01:24:21 am by JerseyKloppite »
Logged
“Happiness can be found in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
“Generosity always pays off. Generosity in your effort, in your work, in your kindness, in the way you look after people and take care of people. In the long run, if you are generous with a heart, and with humanity, it always pays off.”
W
