Liverpool won a game that will be talked about for generations - a Europa League quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund that will live forever in the memory of all at Anfield.
Jurgen Klopp's side were twice left needing three goals to go through in the face of Dortmund's rapier attacks - but climbed the mountain twice with Dejan Lovren's injury-time header concluding a night packed with drama and emotion. Dortmund promised to start on the front foot and emphatically delivered, but it was Jürgen Klopp’s attacking ideas that paid off in the end
1) Klopp’s attacking ideas pay off – in the end
“Against Dortmund you can’t just defend,” said Jürgen Klopp before this game, though he would surely have appreciated it if his charges had defended just a little bit more than this. The starting line-up was if anything bolder than last week’s, with the one change seeing the injured midfielder Jordan Henderson replaced not with Joe Allen or Lucas but with the forward Roberto Firmino. Given that a single away goal in Westphalia had given his side the most slender advantage to protect, and the manner in which the team he selected was promptly ripped apart in the opening exchanges, it seemed he may have been better advised to bolster his defensive ranks. This though was a team to chase a game rather than protect one, the more so after Daniel Sturridge and Joe Allen came on in the second half. Those substitutions contrasted with those of Thomas Tuchel, and Dortmund in the end paid the price for being uncharacteristically defensive: in the 77th minute the defender Matthias Ginter replaced Shinji Kagawa with the score at 3-2; within seconds it was 3-3.
2) Dortmund deliver on their pre-match promise
“The aim is to score as soon as we can and show our strengths from the kick-off at full tempo and hopefully score an early goal,” said Julian Weigl on the eve of the match. Liverpool can’t say they weren’t warned. If Dortmund’s first-leg display lacked intensity, they made up for it by packing a full game’s worth into the first 10 minutes here. Straight from the kick-off, taken by Liverpool, they roared forward, not so much pressing as positively pummelling. When Philippe Coutinho gave the ball away in the fifth minute five players in yellow streamed forward, outnumbering the defenders, and after Simon Mignolet’s save from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang it was the sheer numbers committed forward that led to the goal. When a long, looping ball forward was played too far in front of Marco Reus and bounced towards Mignolet after 15 minutes the German did not stop running, even though his effort was certain to be in vain. Borussia Dortmund press sometimes for the sheer love of pressing, rather than in any reasonable hope of winning the ball, and as the game reached its conclusion they might have focused instead on passing. They never exhibited on the field the control suggested at times by the scoreline. This constant running has brought great success, but some situations call for calm rather than a storm.
3) Another chapter in a barely credible book
This was one spectacularly overcrowded basket – after all, both teams had all their eggs in it. Tuchel made eight changes for Sunday’s 2-2 draw at Schalke before effectively giving up on the Bundesliga title, placing his focus squarely on this competition, while Liverpool could win no other. Despite this pressure the players, rather than being frozen with the fear of failure, produced a wildly open, entertaining game, with seven goals scored and many more chances missed than taken. The question is where it ranks among Liverpool’s relatively recent history of free-scoring European adventures. As in Istanbul, site of the 2005 Champions League final, by half-time they had to score three times to prevail, while like the 2001 Uefa Cup final – played as it happens in Dortmund’s own Westfalenstadion – a night of see-sawing drama ended with them finally winning 5-4. This was another chapter in the same book, increasingly packed with increasingly ludicrous plot twists, the main difference being that there was no trophy presentation at the end of this one.
4) Origi rises to another big occasion
Liverpool created an abundance of half-chances in the first half, without producing a single shot on target. But even while his side’s season appeared finally to be collapsing around him Liverpool’s solitary starting striker once again excelled – and he went on to play a leading role in its thrilling resurrection. At the start the home side gave the ball away too easily and too often but Origi was very rarely to blame. Firmino and Coutinho were both careless during this period, but the young Belgian was the very opposite – his control was excellent, his hold-up play fine, his calmness under pressure impressive. The chances, such as they were, largely fell to others – Alberto Moreno volleyed wide; Adam Lallana accidentally tackled himself – but this was a night when Origi added further lustre to a burgeoning reputation. He scored with his one clear opportunity, and his combination of height, pace and physical strength gave his opponents a multitude of problems. The normally reliable Mats Hummels could have received a second caution for trying to haul him back. Towards the end Dortmund’s defence collapsed into massed panic, and Origi must take much credit for their discombobulation.
5) Sakho’s heart in the right place – but not his feet
Mamadou Sakho was excellent in the first leg, and showed at various moments during the second his reliability in possession, his commitment to the cause and his strength at chasing down and tackling. He quite possibly prevented another goal with a perfectly-timed challenge on Aubameyang in the 26th minute, after Firmino had given the ball away in the Dortmund half, and intercepted well from Kagawa in the 56th. It is his positioning off the ball that let his team down. The Frenchman was at fault for all three Dortmund goals: he ran five yards beyond his nearest team-mate to play Aubameyang onside and allow Gonzalo Castro to set up the first with a chipped pass; perhaps anticipating a ball across him, he got totally caught out when Reus speared a pass on his other side to release the Gabonese forward for the second; and he played Reus onside for the third. He earned back some credit by scoring a goal of his own, and no Liverpool player could end this night in anything other than credit, but perhaps this performance will be remembered more for his weaknesses than his successes.
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