Red Bull Salzburg vs Liverpool, Tuesday 10th December 2019, 17:055, EM-Stadion Wals-Siezenheim vs For those who haven’t read it (or even of you have, it's well worth reading again), hbhr’s beautiful OP for the home tie against these needs to be read to get everyone in the mood for the away tie:https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=343714.0I was hoping this would be the easiest pre match thread to write but the 1-1 draw at home to Napoli a couple of weeks ago means we need to go to Salzburg and avoid defeat to guarantee going through so unfortunately we have to be all business for this one.SalzburgAs cynical as the Red Bull enterprise may be, in footballing terms, we all know this Salzburg side is going to be a stern a test, top of their league and unbeaten and having scored what seems like a hatful of goals in every single game they’ve played, including coming back from 3-0 down at Anfield before Salah won the game for us. I’ll admit, I’ve only seen them play in the game but they looked a strong side and Minamino and Hee-Chan in particular caused us a lot of problems. I don’t think Halaand did all that much when he came on in that game but he scored their equaliser (that’s not too bad from their point of view I guess) and has scored 27 goals in 19 games this season so I reckon he’s pretty decent at finding the back of the net. Their team itself has scored 64 goals in 17 league games, remaining unbeaten, having won only 13 of their 17 league games, bloody amateurs.Still, it shouldn't be forgotten how well we played at Anfield against them, especially early on and Andy Robertson's goal remains one of my favourite goals of the season so far because, well, there's absolutely no reason why anyone wouldn't love it.We of course have two former Salzburg players in our squad in Keita and Mane. Keita's been the one big Klopp signing that hasn't been 100% successful I think it's fair to say, for a variety of reasons but it's clear he has something he can bring to our midfield that most other players we have in that position, Oxlade-Chamberlain aside, don't have and after his performance against Bournemouth on Saturday, we'll hopefully start to see more of that from him. Mane of course very much has been a success and keeps on elevating his game season upon season, right from his goal at Arsenal on his debut, he just keeps better and better, having the goalscoring numbers of a number nine and the overall game of a hybrid winger and classic number ten. Most importantly, he's the personification of a fucking mentality giant. Biased of course but he's been the best player in England this season.So two fine teams and as well know, we’ve had to navigate similar challenges before however, not least last season where we needed to beat a strong Napoli side (which wasn't in disarray) by a goal to nil or by two clear goals to go through.Napoli 2018Aside from Alisson being Alisson in the last minute, it was a game that we bossed and one that should have been far more comfortable than it turned out to be. Alisson's save from Milik was the moment in that game however and in hindsight, it's better to be able to add that moment to the list of iconic moments than to have run out 5-0 winners (I think).Olympiakos 2004The classic when talking about final group stage games. I saw this game again recently and like the Napoli game, it was one we dominated but fell behind to Rivaldo’s free kick. In recent games we’ve seen semi first teamers in Origi, Shaqiri, Lallana and Keita step up when we needed them and here, Florent Sinama-Pongolle and Neil Mellor wrote themselves into our history before Mellor set up Gerrard for one of the most iconic moments this club has ever had. Thankfully for us, it wasn't the most iconic thing that happened that season. My memory is hazy as to whether that was before or after Mellor's last minute 30 yard winner against Arsenal (I think after?) but in any case, it was around the same time. I'd say that that was the kind of thing we've all dreamed about at some point in our lives and it's the kind of thing sticks in supporters minds forever. That it was via an Academy graduate just makes it that little bit more special.Marseille 2007Unbelievably in 2007, we got one point from our first three Champions League games and needed to win the last three to go through. So we demolished Beşiktaş, who had beaten us in Turkey, 8-0 (a game we were so good in, that night Babel scored a goal off his arse) and then beat Porto 4-1 before travelling to France to face a strong Marseille side which had deservedly beaten us at Anfield earlier on in the competition.Ultimately, we went there and played like it was a training session (rather like the Bournemouth game just gone), went 2-0 up in the first 10 minutes, including Torres dancing through their whole defence for our second before Kurt and Babel added gloss to the scoreline to make it 4-0. At this point, I've changed my mind, we've had enough historic moments already so that I'd take a comfortable 4-0 victory like this one rather than Alisson saving from Haaland in the last minute or Henderson scoring the equaliser four minutes from time please.Let’s have it!
17' Pass and move... Salah to Trent who centers ... but to no avail.Then Hendo with a nice intercept.... Mane putting on a clinic for keeping the ball and then gets manhandled... foul and free kick
25' Lovren step for step with Haaland on the Salzburg left... forces him a bit wide on the shot and save Allison
He’s been manhandled every time he’s been near the ball.The ref finally gives something.
