Reading:Liverpool: ‘It was Anfield’s greatest night and it may never be beaten’ – Jamie Carragher and Ian Rush relive a Klopp classic, exclusively with FourFourTwo
Liverpool: ‘It was Anfield’s greatest night and it may never be beaten’ – Jamie Carragher and Ian Rush relive a Klopp classic, exclusively with FourFourTwo
Liverpool’s long history has been littered with great nights at home stadium Anfield. Such is the level of support and belief inside the Merseyside ground, comebacks and miracles that would be impossible elsewhere occur under those floodlights on a regular basis.
According to legendary Reds players Jamie Carragher and Ian Rush, one night looms above all others in Anfield’s grand history: Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona in 2019’s Champions League semi-final second-leg. Jürgen Klopp’s side had lost the first instalment 3-0 following a Lionel Messi masterclass and had it all to do back in England. Few believed they could.
“People also often forget that the night before this game, Vincent Kompany scored that late goal for Manchester City against Leicester to basically win them the Premier League title,” Carragher tells FourFourTwo now. “So, you can imagine Klopp and his players all watching that game and feeling that disappointment just before going to bed. Then you have to get yourself up to play against Barcelona, who are 3-0 up from the first leg.
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“Added to that, you’ve got no Mo Salah or Roberto Firmino, who were both injured. Klopp famously said to his players in his pre-match talk, ‘I wouldn’t believe it’s possible to win this game unless it was you I was looking at – the players in this room make me believe’. That’s what Jürgen is all about: making players feel that they can do things that maybe they don’t think themselves.
Ian Rush, who watched the game next to one of Klopp’s Liverpool predecessors in the Anfield stands, sensed the tides begin to shift as Liverpool made a strong start.
“I was sitting next to Gerard Houllier in the stands and when Divock Origi scored the first goal after seven minutes, the roof came off the place,” he tells FFT. “Once things are in motion at Anfield on those nights, it’s pretty impossible to stop them. I remember praying that Barcelona wouldn’t get a goal back, as, had they scored, we would have needed five!”
(Image credit: PA)
Origi’s strike was followed by a pair of second half strikes of Gini Wijnaldum. With the scores now level, the Reds scored a winner that has gone down in the club’s folklore – Trent Alexander-Arnold taking a quick corner to find Origi unmarked just a few yards from goal. The Belgian scored to send the stadium into raptures.
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“It was the manner in which Liverpool scored that fourth goal – the quick thinking from everyone involved, from the ball boy to Trent Alexander-Arnold to Divock Origi, 0that made the whole evening feel like a dream,” recalls Rush.
“To put in that type of stellar performance, with a weakened team, is why that display might never be surpassed, not just by a Klopp team but by any Liverpool team,” adds Carragher. “It was the greatest night in Anfield’s history, in my opinion.”
“I agree with Carra,” says Rush. “It’s the greatest night in the history of Anfield, and right up there with Istanbul in terms of the best Liverpool games ever. A few of us went up to the boardroom after the game, Jürgen came in and we were all still celebrating – we couldn’t believe what we had seen. But he was so controlled. He was happy, obviously, but focused on the next game already. He was nothing like us.”
Liverpool would go on to lift that season’s Champions League title, beating fellow Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 in Madrid. While that may be the game that sealed the trophy, it’s the performance in the previous game at Anfield that most Liverpool fans consider the greatest under Klopp.
