By Alan Hansen
Last Updated: 2:40am GMT 05/03/2007
Each of the four English teams going into this week's Champions League fixtures would be relatively happy with their position, even the club who have just suffered their most galling defeat of the season.
Rafa Benitez
Glaring omission: Rafa Benitez needs a 20-goal-a-season striker
Had I been a Liverpool player coming off the pitch at Anfield while all around me Manchester United celebrated a game they ought to have lost, I would not have been too despondent.
Yes, the disappointment would be massive but deep down there would also be a feeling that if Liverpool play that well against Barcelona tomorrow night, they will go through. I have no doubts about that whatsoever.
The one point you can make about their defeat by Manchester United is that if Liverpool possessed a 20-goal-a-season striker, they would probably have won that game easily. That is one of the issues that Rafael Benitez and the club's new owners have to address in the summer. In terms of buying players the Liverpool manager has to stop shopping at Woolworth's and start looking around Harvey Nichols.
From their first triumph in Rome in 1977 to that amazing night in Istanbul two years ago, the European Cup has given Liverpool some extraordinary memories; but the league was always the bread and butter at Anfield and the gap between Liverpool and the leaders cannot make for comfortable reading. They are a side in need of three high-class players added.
However, when he looks at the picture beyond Saturday's game, Benitez will be reasonably happy. This season the emotions around Anfield have swung wildly from doom and gloom to euphoria and then back again, but despite Saturday's setback Liverpool are on an upward curve. Their displays have been good, and often better than good, for many weeks now while at centre-back Jamie Carragher is putting in one quality performance after another.
The one proviso I would add is that I cannot see Barcelona being as bad at Anfield as they were at the Nou Camp. After Liverpool conceded an early goal, everything about Benitez's game plan was spot on; aided by a Barcelona defence who were all over the place and a goalkeeper who made errors that were simply jaw-dropping.
The atmosphere at Old Trafford on Wednesday is likely to be tense, not because of the match situation - Manchester United should progress easily enough against Lille - but because of the extraordinary circumstances of the first leg. Usually in football, as in life, there are two sides to every story but here there is only one. The French attempt to simply walk off the pitch was beyond belief. The only circumstances in which you would ever leave the field of play is if the pitch was invaded. Lille were angry that they had conceded to a quickly-taken free-kick, which was the result of timing and opportunism from Ryan Giggs. United were not to blame for what happened and if Lille wanted someone to criticise they should take a look at themselves.
Of all the English clubs, Arsenal are under the most obvious threat. If you had said eight days ago that their season could be over on Wednesday night, it would have seemed incredible.
Their brand of football, technically, is superior to anything else in England, their youth system gives them strength in depth but they are still 20 points behind Manchester United and for all the great touches they displayed against Chelsea and Blackburn in the cups, they lost both matches.
They have two big questions to answer. How many of that young side that played in the Carling Cup final will have made it in four years' time? And is next season going to be any different to this one? They have the players to beat PSV Eindhoven but too often at the Emirates Stadium Arsenal have faltered against teams they should have brushed aside.
The first game they played there, against Aston Villa, set the pattern. They dominated, they conceded against the run of the game and had to fight hard for a late equaliser. It is a pattern they have to break on Wednesday night, otherwise their season will have collapsed inside a fortnight.
United's winner at Anfield would have hit Chelsea hard but whether the Premiership is now beyond them or not, they are a club who are not going to go away. But the formula for Jose Mourinho is a simple one. If Chelsea win the Premiership or the Champions League to go with the Carling Cup, it's been a good season. If they don't end up with either the Premiership or the Champions League it's been a bad one. It's as straightforward as that.
Liverpool on song for Europe
Chumps at home but champs in Europe. What is it about Rafa
Benitez’s team that will make Barça fear them on Tuesday?
Jonathan Northcroft
In the small hours on the day of the 2005 Champions League final, Rafael Benitez loitered in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Istanbul, chatting to two of his oldest friends, Teo Escamilla, a former teammate from the Spanish second division, and Emilio Garcia Carrasco, a television commentator. Both had travelled from Madrid to share their amigo’s big moment and as the trio had passed the evening at the hotel bar, Benitez eschewing drink as usual to talk football and chomp on peanuts, Escamilla and Carrasco had found the manager in familiar form.
Then, in the lobby, he did something that surprised the pair. There were four lifts and Benitez suddenly pointed to one. “If this lift comes down, we’ll win the final on penalties,” smiled the normally unsuperstitious manager. A bell dinged. The doors at which Benitez had pointed opened. Saying nothing, he departed for his room on the seventh floor, his grin wider, his eyes glinting. Benitez smiled again on Friday at mention of the word that has come to be attached to that whole strange sequence of events leading to Liverpool conquering Europe two years ago - miracle.
The idea of the miracle is always going to be more exciting than that of the methodical. In 2005 it was possible to see Liverpool’s Champions League campaign as star-crossed, one of the game’s unexplainable marvels, a year when magic touched a football club to the extent that its manager could even have premonitions in hotel lobbies - or more extraordinary still, beat Milan in a final with a starting XI including Djimi Traore. That, of course, ignores the alternative version of the story, the one in which mundanities such as Benitez’s painstaking training ground preparation or the onfield effort and focus of Jamie Carragher, Sami Hyypia and Steven Gerrard, are to the fore. The miracle concept also fails to explain what has happened since.
Lightning does not strike twice. If 2005 was simply “special” for Liverpool, why, two seasons on, are they continuing to achieve the best Champions League results of all English clubs? What about two weeks ago in Barcelona? Since Benitez arrived in 2004, Liverpool have out-performed Manchester United and Chelsea and, by a small margin, Arsenal, in terms of games won in football’s primary club competition. A quick recap of their opponents over that period confirms that it has not been because of flukes or easy fixtures. There is consistency about Benitez’s success in Europe, just as there was at Valencia, where he made a serious challenge in the Champions League before winning the Uefa Cup in 2003-4.
England, perhaps, still cannot get its collective head around the manager and there was probably less surprise abroad about Liverpool’s 2-1 victory in the Nou Camp than at home. Benitez knows his capabilities. The lift story is revealed in a biography of the manager by his friend, the Spanish radio journalist Paco Lloret, who says that when they talk before any match, no matter how difficult, the same word always comes into Benitez’s analysis: “winnable”.
Perhaps the Spaniard’s fearlessness is best suited to the big, one-off occasions of a knockout competition. Liverpool’s Premiership form continues to cower in the shadow of their European performances. The pattern was most spectacular in 2004-5: in the day job the team finished fifth behind Everton, losing 14 times, with defeats by the likes of Crystal Palace and Southampton, while slaying Juventus, Chelsea and Milan on midweek evenings. Again the theories that seemed to hold true then - that Benitez’s foreign signings were still adapting to English football, that he was being surprised by unfamiliar domestic opponents, that the squad was only big enough for cup challenges rather than a league - now seem less definitive given that, two seasons later, Liverpool’s pattern of champs in Europe, chumps in England, is still being repeated.
The muscular, high-tempo pressing game always favoured by Benitez, to the point that his Valencia were known as the Crushing Machine, seems suited to mangling continental opponents who are less equipped for a physical challenge than English ones.
Benitez also likes defence-based, compact, counter-attacking play, the type of approach that has always flourished for teams in Europe, where a 0-0 or a stolen away goal is always more valuable than in a 38-game league campaign. There is also the fact that clubs have traditions, and Liverpool’s is of success in Europe, and that players like Carragher and Gerrard are inspired when they are standing in the lineups and that Champions League music starts.
Benitez believes that Liverpool have lost nothing of what made them special in 2005 and have only improved. “This team, my team now, I think it is better,” he said. “I think in 2005 in the Champions League we were spectacular. It was really difficult to play against Olympiakos and Leverkusen and Juventus and Chelsea. They were top sides and some people say, ‘Luck’. No. Luck is one or two games, but not over a lot of games.”
For a spell in the Nou Camp, Barcelona were weaving through on Jose Reina’s goal as if Benitez’s players were training cones, but there was a nervelessness about Liverpool. They kept their discipline, kept exerting physical pressure, kept looking for Craig Bellamy and Dirk Kuyt on the counter, and the gameplan prevailed. Benitez did not dismiss the idea that beating the current European champions over two legs would be more satisfying than defeating Milan in Istanbul. “It would be good. For me, beating Barcelona means you can beat any of the top sides. The only thing is, you have to do it with more regularity, you must be more consistent.”
This is Benitez’s mantra and this is why, at full-time in Istanbul, rather than cavorting before the fans with the rest of the Liverpool staff, he made a beeline for Djibril Cisse to discuss a technical detail that had arisen during his appearance as a substitute.
Barcelona travel to Merseyside talking about attack, having turned around a Copa del Rey tie against Real Zaragoza in midweek by switching to 3-4-3, winning on the night 2-1 to progress on away goals.
Benitez is quick to dismiss concerns about Ronaldinho’s form and fitness and believes that Samuel Eto’o will return to improve the Catalans. Barça were very successful away from home against his Valencia team, “but we are playing in Anfield, not the Mestalla, and that is a big difference”.
Fear of failure drives Gerrard for Liverpool's defining game
By Sam Wallace, Football Correspondent
Published: 06 March 2007
Steven Gerrard described the prospect as "unthinkable" yesterday, but Champions League elimination at the hands of Barcelona will not be far from the mind at Anfield tonight. Beyond that, the Liverpool captain said he could not bring himself to contemplate the "big chunk of the season" that would be left meaningless other than the small detail of qualifying for the competition once again.
They are seldom so negative when the big European nights come to Anfield but for a club so cruelly defeated in the dying moments by Manchester United on Saturday, the memory is still fresh. With the American owners expected to attend, emotions will be on edge against the European champions tonight: go through and this night will be remembered as one of the classics; go out and the season ends when the last jubilant Catalan leaves town.
Certainly, Saturday's events accounted for a brow that looked troubled even by Gerrard's standards yesterday. The Liverpool captain admitted that he had a "difficult Sunday" coming to terms with the defeat and the reality that his club are out of another title race. At Liverpool they are clinging to the last trophy they have an interest in, but the European Cup has never exactly been a banker for even the most confident of clubs. At Liverpool now, it is the last salvation.
"It actually scares you as a player to think that, if you go out of this competition, you're only playing for a top-four finish," Gerrard said. "There's a big chunk of the season still left to play, so that's unthinkable. That drives me on and will definitely be in my mind when we play Barcelona, thinking that we need the result to keep our season alive.
"It's got to serve as extra motivation. It's really difficult to take that we've only got one trophy to play for, but it is the biggest trophy so it wouldn't be a bad one to go and win. The players need to focus on that and make sure we're in the draw for the last eight."
They are, however, not the only ones seeking redemption. The Catalan press corps arrived yesterday at Anfield en masse, and they came to interrogate the Liverpool manager about his team selection. Barcelona may have the most formidable front line in the world - Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto'o and Ronaldinho - but Rafael Benitez has possibly the most unpredictable and, with 24 hours to go, no one was much the wiser how it would shape up this time.
The smart money is on Peter Crouch starting, and when you hear Benitez's take on the Spanish attitude towards the England striker, it becomes more obvious why: they do not appear to have seen a player like him before. "Crouch is a big problem to Barcelona because normally they wouldn't play against someone like him in Spain," Benitez said.
Comparisons with Niko Zigic, the lumbering Serb at Racing Santander, were waved away - he may be just as tall but he has nothing like the ability and has been discounted by a number of potential Premiership suitors. The question of how Liverpool play, and whether that includes Crouch, goes to the heart of Barcelona's unease about the tie. Like the rest of us, they do not seem to have a clue what Benitez is thinking either.
The team will be announced, as usual, an hour or so before kick-off. No material clues were offered yesterday apart from a more expansive appraisal than usual of Crouch, who has been left out in favour of Dirk Kuyt and Craig Bellamy of late, most notably in the first-leg game against Barcelona and against United on Saturday. In response, Barcelona are not certain whether they will play Rafael Marquez or Edmilson in the centre of defence.
"When we played against Betis [in 2005], they couldn't manage against Crouch because they aren't used to it," Benitez said. "And with the Spanish mentality about English football being all long balls and second balls, they are a little bit afraid to talk about Crouch. We might play with Crouch, but we need to bear in mind how Barcelona will play and do things that are good for us."
Gerrard admitted that it would be "suicide" to think that "the job is done" after a 2-1 win in the Nou Camp and there is, once again, the sense that this game will prove a fine examination of Benitez's tactical credentials. They are generally regarded as impeccable in Europe but tonight he faces an unenviable choice: defend and invite the best attacking force in the competition to have a go or, alternatively, attack and risk throwing away the lead.
The solution seemed to be somewhere in between, with Benitez talking about "controlling the game" and while his task may look substantial tonight, history is very much on Liverpool's side. The last time a team lost the first leg of a Champions League tie at home and overturned the deficit in the second leg to go through was Ajax, 11 years ago. Barcelona will, at the very least, have to score twice and they will have no alternative but to attack.
The ideal stage, you would think, for Ronaldinho to nail those stories about him carrying a few extra pounds around the waist - at the very least it might make him think twice about changing shirts at the end of the match. Comparisons of pictures of the Brazilian taken last year with more recent shots have suggested he has put on weight, although Gerrard was first to his defence yesterday. "He looked all right to me when he took his top off, he looked in great shape," Gerrard said. "He's just set unbelievable standards, so people expect him to be the best every game and score every game, hat-tricks, wonderful free-kicks and all these skills. But you can't always do that. He has one average performance and everyone thinks he's lost form or put a bit of weight on. But he's scored 17 league goals."
Liverpool will hope that their players are too busy celebrating another Anfield glory night to bother pursuing Ronaldinho down the tunnel for his shirt tonight. "The defining game of our season," Gerrard said. "If we lose there is nothing left." It is a bleak assessment but after Saturday's result they are stealing themselves for the very best, or very worst.
Odds against Barça History favours Reds to progress
Not only has no team ever successfully defended a Champions League title (in the current format) but it is also 11 years since a side won a tie having lost at home in the first leg. That was Ajax in the 1996 semi-final against Panathinaikos. Ajax lost the first leg 1-0 at home and then won 3-0 in Greece. Since then there have been 14 occasions when a team have lost the home first leg and failed to turn it around in the second leg.
Andy Hunter: Anfield test gives Rijkaard plenty to ponder
The Barcelona manager may draw the curtain down on his role in the club's soap opera if they fail against Liverpool tonight
Published: 06 March 2007
There were no signs of an empire crumbling around Franklin Edmundo Rijkaard last night as he serenely patrolled an empty Anfield stadium soon to be transformed from eerie silence into a maelstrom of passion and expectation. Aloof as he surveyed Barcelona's final training session before the Champions League date with Liverpool from the sidelines, the Dutchman had earlier confronted the media circus that follows the European champions' every stepover with a composure that belied the sense that a defining moment in the life of his exuberant team is upon us.
Serenity is at odds with the discord that engulfed the Nou Camp before the potentially decisive blow Liverpool dealt to their successors as European Cup holders a fortnight ago, and a personality transplant removed from the majestic yet combustible Rijkaard of his playing days, a man who turned the holding-midfield role into an art form long before the rest of Europe picked up on another of Milan's fashions.
Yet the transformation is no act. In part, Rijkaard's reserve explains how a 44-year-old with only one season of managerial experience at club level before his surprising arrival in Catalonia in 2003 moulded the finest side of this generation, while controlling a collection of mammoth egos and a soap opera of a club that is threatened by further acrimony if their defence of the European Cup falls at the first knockout stage on Merseyside. That, and the acumen gained from a glorious career under the immense coaching influences of Rinus Michels, Arrigo Sacchi, Johan Cruyff and Fabio Capello.
Succumb to another of Rafael Benitez's European traps, so theories abound in Spain, and the cycle of an enviable team even by the rich standards of Barcelona will hasten towards a brief and bitter end. Ronaldinho, the World Player of the Year, will take his inconsistent form anywhere he so desires, Samuel Eto'o, Deco and Xavi will follow suit into the Premiership and, most damaging of all, the coach who compounded the collapse of the galactico era at Real Madrid by winning successive La Liga titles and only the second European Cup in Nou Camp history will activate a contract clause that allows him to depart at a time of his choosing.
Rumours that Rijkaard will take a 12-month sabbatical from the game this summer have abounded all season. Initially, naturally, they were fuelled by the Spanish sports dailies with ties to Madrid but, in the wake of a public spat with Eto'o following the striker's refusal to return from injury as a late substitute against Racing Santander, a drama that soon enveloped the club president Joan Laporta, Ronaldinho and prompted a staged hug of reconciliation between the superstars, even the Catalan-friendly media have entered the debate.
The Dutch coach has advocated stability and harmony throughout his reign in Spain, or at least he has since surviving a troubled start when he was at odds with the culture of the players inherited from Raddy Antic and labelled a "coward" by the press following a decision to pack his midfield at home to Real Madrid in December 2003, a mistake that resulted in a first El Classico defeat at the Nou Camp for his club in 20 years and fuelled belief that Laporta had picked the wrong Dutchman by resisting Ronald Koeman's claims for the job. It is a policy that has earned Rijkaard the respect of players who appreciate the freedom he allows them on and off the field - Lionel Messi insists: "I owe everything to him. Put it this way: if I hurt myself for him, I would not feel the pain" - but now that cracks have appeared in a previously united squad the doubts surrounding the coach's future have fresh credibility.
Friction within the camp has coincided with a sequence of results that have attracted more criticism and pressure for Barcelona than at any time since the winter of 2003. Defeat at the Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium at the weekend was their third in four games, all against opponents in Valencia, Liverpool and now Seville with the calibre to puncture a defence in desperate need of resilience at Anfield and with their only respite coming at home to the relegation-threatened Athletic Bilbao. Barcelona have not won away since November and, though Rijkaard maintained a characteristic air of calm last night and attempted to turn the 2-1 defeat by Juande Ramos' side into a positive - "Liverpool play in a similar style to Seville and their mentality is the same, too, so I think the defeat will help us," he said - there is real fear among his staunch Catalan admirers that disharmony and defeat will accelerate a decision to leave.
There is no threat to Rijkaard's position from within Barcelona. Despite rabid politics, the club's board recognise the success and style he has delivered while the club's supporters revel in the neat humour, authority and non-confrontational manner of a coach who represents the polar opposite to the bristling Capello of the Bernabeu. Rijkaard is recognised as a good man in Spain, a man of honour, and so the only words he has spoken about his uncertain future were greeted enthusiastically when delivered in Valencia a fortnight ago, even though they lacked an unequivocal intention to stay. "I have looked into the future ... and it says, yes," he said at the Mestalla, when asked whether he would still be in charge of Barcelona next season. "I have never said I was going to leave. I am happy here, and it is an honour to work here. But it is a bit much to say I will be here many years because I know how football works. My intention is to stay."
Yet the Amsterdam-born coach of Surinamese descent does have a history of walking away if he believes progress is being halted by dispute or if achievement has reached its peak (although as a triple European Cup winner who last season became only the fifth person to lift the trophy as a player and manager, his threshold is higher than most). Having collected two league championships in his first three seasons as a central defender at Ajax, he stormed off the training ground after a furious row with the then coach Cruyff and vowed never to play for the Netherlands' legend again.
Rijkaard stuck to his word, signing for Sporting Lisbon and then Real Zaragoza on loan before his illustrious five-year spell and metamorphosis into an accomplished midfielder began under Sacchi at Milan, although it indicates how well his social skills have developed that Cruyff was instrumental in his stunning elevation at the Nou Camp 16 years later.
Rijkaard's first coaching role was also a surprise, when he graduated from assisting Guus Hiddink to take full control of the Dutch national side for the 2000 European Championship. When he failed in his stated aim to win the competition on home soil, losing in a semi-final penalty shoot-out to Italy, he resigned on the spot. There followed a season in charge of Sparta Rotterdam, where he presided over the first relegation in the club's history, although financial problems contributed to poor results and his departure at the end of that campaign, before he embarked on the first sabbatical of his managerial life.
Whether he takes a second this summer remains to be seen. Despite their latest defeat, Barcelona remain one point off the summit of La Liga and a hat-trick of league titles following a season when both Messi and Eto'o have missed large portions through injury will be viewed as another epic achievement by Rijkaard. As would a place in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, although Liverpool will fiercely contest his right to progress tonight.
Frank appraisal Rijkaard's form at helm
* NETHERLANDS
In his first managerial appointment (1998) Rijkaard reached the semi-finals of the 2000 European Championship with the Netherlands.
* SPARTA ROTTERDAM
Under his stewardship, Sparta Rotterdam were relegated in the 2001-02 season.
* BARCELONA
After a turbulent start in 2003, Barça finished the 2003-04 season in second place. A year later they went one better. But 2006 was the pinnacle of his career as Barcelona won La Liga and the Champions League, playing mesmerising football to make even their arch-rivals Real Madrid envious.
Messi and Rijkaard attack Liverpool's 'ugly' style of play
By John Nisbet
Published: 06 March 2007
Division is supposedly rife at Barcelona but the European champions were united in criticism of Liverpool last night as the Argentine striker Lionel Messi rounded on their style and coach Frank Rijkaard admonished Rafael Benitez for daring to suggest the Spanish side will rely on all-out attack at Anfield tonight.
Barcelona must overturn a 2-1 deficit to preserve their hold on the European Cup, a predicament that Benitez, the Liverpool manager, suggested would tempt Rijkaard to field Messi, Ronaldinho and Samuel Eto'o in a three-pronged attack against his impressive defence. That prompted a withering response from the Dutchman, who accompanied his 19-year-old forward in labelling the 2005 champions a functional unit who made it " too easy" for his side during their first-leg defeat.
"It is great to play against a team whose manager knows everything," said Rijkaard, who arrived in England without the injured Thiago Motta and the rested Giovanni van Bronckhorst. "There is a saying; the people who say they know the most know the least." The Barcelona coach added: " We made life difficult for ourselves in the first leg but some people already believe Liverpool are through and that has taken the pressure off us. We go into the game thinking we have nothing to lose. The problem in the first leg was that we failed to kill off the game. After we scored we thought it was too easy for us and we paid the penalty."
Barcelona have lost three of their last five games and Messi believes negative opponents are responsible for their reversal of fortunes. "The first leg was weird, even the goals they scored were weird," said the teenager. "The problem we have is that most of our opponents play in an ugly way, waiting for us to leave gaps at the back, and then counter-attack us. It is an obstacle we are learning to try and overcome."
Rijkaard needs more than a crystal ball
By Tim Rich
Last Updated: 1:34am GMT 06/03/2007
Gerrard: It's all or nothing for us
It was an intimate gathering, 20 television cameras plus a couple of hundred journalists that made even Anfield's trophy room appear cramped. George Bush barely receives that kind of attention for a White House briefing.
Ronaldinho
Help: Barcelona's Eidur Gudjohnsen and Ronaldinho arrive at John Lennon airport ahead of the match
The Barcelona press corps, famed for its self-importance and the surprising banality of its questions, had already exhausted Rafael Benitez. But, after losing the leadership of the Spanish league and the first leg of this Champions League tie, Frank Rijkaard, the man who delivered only Catalonia's second European Cup, was the real target.
Even in his dead-man-walking phase at Stamford Bridge, Claudio Ranieri would have had better long-term prospects than the Barcelona manager should he fail to pull off an improbable comeback tonight.
Over the weekend, Rijkaard, asked about his future, had pretended to look in a crystal ball and pronounced his job secure. Yesterday, he was asked to do the same and predict the score. The ball, sadly, had been left at home. "Some people may think Liverpool are already through, but they will find it more difficult playing in front of their own fans because they will have to put on a show," he said.
When asked about Benitez's opinion that this is a crucial game for Barcelona and that he knew their likely team, he replied: "People who say they know everything, often know the least. We certainly know how to beat them."
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It is hard to imagine the European champions would need a lucky shirt but this evening they will take the field in a fluorescent yellow number in which they have not lost in six attempts, though the presence of Samuel Eto'o, who missed the defeat in the Nou Camp, might be more significant.
Rijkaard's captain, Carles Puyol, said Barcelona would need to deliver "a perfect performance" to win. Ominously, when they last came to Anfield and sliced Liverpool apart 3-1 six years ago, they indeed displayed football that was close to perfection.
However, their last game, at Sevilla, had been as much an ordeal as Liverpool's last-minute defeat to Manchester United. Barcelona had taken the lead, seen Ronaldinho miss a penalty and then lost to a side who finished the match with nine men.
Again the pressure is on Ronaldinho. This season the Brazilian has been criticised for his finishing, his leadership, his flirtation with AC Milan and his weight. Steven Gerrard, who plays under similarly intense expectations, could empathise.
"He looked all right to me when he took his top off after scoring," Gerrard said. "He sets unbelievable standards, so people expect him to go out and score every game; pull off hat-tricks, wonderful free-kicks and all these skills. But, as a footballer, you can't always do that. He has one average performance and everyone thinks he's lost form or put a bit of weight on, but he's scored 17 league goals and he looked in great shape over there."
Steven Gerrard already knows what it is to throw away a victory. He watched it on Match of the Day, struggled through it on what he admitted had been a miserable Sunday. If John O'Shea could tear a match from Liverpool's grasp, what might Ronaldinho, Lionel Messi and Samuel Eto'o do?
Steven Gerrard takes a breather during training
He'll huff and he'll puff: Liverpool's Steven Gerrard takes a breather
"It actually scares you to think that if you go out of this competition, you're only playing for a top-four finish," the Liverpool captain said. "This is the defining game of our season, if we lose there is nothing left."
Gerrard has come through some intense European nights at Anfield, but part of him thinks that facing Barcelona might be greater than the ones against Juventus and Chelsea - although it could scarcely be noisier - that cleared Liverpool an improbable path to the European Cup final in Istanbul.
When Sir Alex Ferguson commented on this match - one he expected Barcelona to lose - the Manchester United manager thought a Liverpool victory might make it easier for United or AC Milan to lift the trophy in Athens. He did not mention Liverpool. "I think it's good if people underestimate us, or talk of us like that," Gerrard said. "We came into this tie as underdogs."
For all his ability, Gerrard is not one of life's optimists. But even a glance at the statistics, something that rarely concern a professional footballer, might reassure him. It is 11 years since a club extricated themselves from the situation Barcelona find themselves in - winning the tie away after having lost the home leg. In the European Cup semi-finals of 1996, Ajax were facing a Panathinaikos side who were by no stretch of the imagination comparable to Rafael Benitez's Liverpool.
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Benitez, like Gerrard, has come through several desperately close evenings in Europe, but few compared with the one in the Nou Camp in which Liverpool, having been all but routed in the opening 20 minutes, fought their way back to win 2-1 and make a place in Friday's quarter-final draw a distinct possibility.
"Definitely," Gerrard said, when asked if that had been the best performance Liverpool had produced in his time at Anfield. "Before the game we'd have settled for a draw over in Barcelona, so to go there and beat them was brilliant. I think we surprised them, and an awful lot of people, with how offensively we played. We shocked Barcelona over there. It was a great team performance, but it needs to be matched again."
This will be an intense if slightly strange evening. However much Benitez planned to win at the Nou Camp, this is probably not where he expected to be. When the draw was made, Liverpool would have almost certainly imagined they would have to win at Anfield. As it is, a 1-0 defeat would suffice.
"You've got to make sure you don't get carried away and think the tie is over," said Gerrard, who explained this was the reason why his players refrained from making any rash statements in the bowels of the Nou Camp after their win.
"It would have been really silly for us to have been celebrating at the Nou Camp, or doing any interviews saying the job's done. We've got to be realistic. We're facing the best side in Europe, although they're not playing at top form of late. We're expecting a really good performance from Barcelona, so we'll need to match them or better them. Again.
"I don't think they'll come storming out of the blocks. I think they'll be a little bit cleverer than that. They'll try and break us down, and I think they'll be really confident that they can secure the result that they want. This game will be a lot more difficult than the one we faced in the Nou Camp, no doubt about that."
Team details (probable)
Liverpool (4-4-2): Reina; Arbeloa, Carragher, Agger, Aurelio; Finnan, Gerrard, Alonso, Riise; Bellamy, Crouch.
Barcelona (probable: 4-3-3): Valdes; Oleguer, Puyol, Thuram, Zambrotta; Edmilson, Xavi, Deco; Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Messi.
Referee: H Fandel (Germany).
Gerrard: Overconfidence against Barça would be suicidal
Dominic Fifield
Tuesday March 6, 2007
The Guardian
Steven Gerrard has warned his Liverpool team-mates that it would be "suicidal" to assume Barcelona arrive at Anfield tonight as a beaten team, insisting the Merseysiders will have to exceed their stunning efforts at Camp Nou if they are to knock-out the reigning European champions and keep their season alive.
The England midfielder was quick to counter against complacency with the quarter-finals within reach given his side's 2-1 first-leg lead. He insisted their immediate challenge against the Catalans - which will be the first match watched by Liverpools's new owners - is greater even than their task to overcome Milan in the 2005 final in Istanbul.
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"We secured the result we wanted in the first leg but you've got to make sure you don't get carried away and think that the tie is over," said Gerrard. "This game will be a lot more difficult than the one we faced in the Nou Camp, no doubt about that, so it would be suicidal for us to go into it overconfident, thinking the job's done. In fact, it will be harder than anything else we have experienced in Europe, and harder than we faced in Istanbul."
Liverpool's victorious players made a point of suppressing their public celebrations after ending Barcelona's 13-match unbeaten home run in European competition last week, conscious that the 2006 winners will remain a potent threat on Merseyside tonight as they attempt to claw back their one-goal deficit. The Catalans won 3-1 on their last visit to Anfield, back in 2001, though history is against a repeat given that it is 41 years since they last recovered from losing the first leg at home to prevail on aggregate in a continental tie.
"But it would have been really silly for us to have been celebrating at the Nou Camp, or doing any interviewing saying the job's done after that first game," added Gerrard. "We've got to be realistic. We're facing the best side in Europe, a team full of world-class players, even if they're not playing at top form of late. We're expecting a really good performance from Barcelona so we'll need to match them or better them. Again. But we are ready."
Gerrard says finish off Barcelona tonight or our season is over
Captain says fear of failure will fire Liverpool against the holders at Anfield, reports Dominic Fifield
Tuesday March 6, 2007
The Guardian
The first bellowed chorus of You'll Never Walk Alone will be drifting off the Kop, the pre-match din reverberating through Anfield, when Steven Gerrard gathers his team together tonight and confronts the unimaginable. "It scares me to think that, if we go out of this competition, we'll only be playing for a top-four finish," he admitted. "There's such a big chunk of the season still left, so this is a defining game. If we lose, there's nothing left."
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The expectation constantly weighing on Liverpool ensures that the captain blanched at the possibility that this campaign could run aground by the first week of March. Logic may dictate that Barcelona, usurped at the top of La Liga and with their defence of the European Cup dependent upon retrieving a 2-1 deficit from the home leg, arrive at Anfield as a team buckling under unimaginable pressure. Instead, it is their hosts' season which teeters on the brink. Progress into the last eight is essential. The alternative is unthinkable.
Gerrard recognises that much more than most. Eliminated from the FA and League Cups, and trailing Manchester United by 19 points after Saturday's defeat here, it is a fear of further failure that is spurring Liverpool on. "That's got to serve as extra motivation," he acknowledged. "That drives me on and will definitely be in my mind on Tuesday night, thinking that we need the result to keep our season alive. It's really difficult to accept that we've only got one trophy to play for because, at this club, we aim to put silverware in the cabinet every year.
"But at least we're still aiming to claim the biggest trophy, so it wouldn't be a bad one to win. As captain, when I get the team together in the dressing room before the game, I'll tell them that we've got a great chance of going through into the last eight of the European Cup, so let's go and take it. We have to give everything we've got. There's an 11-day break after this game, so there's nothing to hold back for and, to be honest, we couldn't have asked to be in a better situation than we are now in terms of the tie."
Liverpool can cling to the hope generated by that startling result in Barcelona a fortnight ago. It is 11 years since a side overturned a first-leg home defeat in this competition to secure passage into the next phase, a measure of the task awaiting the Catalans this evening, with Gerrard admitting that his side had caught the holders cold in Spain. "We surprised them with how offensively we played over there," he said. "We shocked Barcelona slightly. Before the game we'd have settled for a draw, but it ended up being a great team performance. Now we need to match, or exceed, that.
"Theirs would be an unbelievable scalp to claim. Barcelona are one of the best teams in the competition so, if we can beat them, then why can't we go all the way? It helps perhaps that people underestimate us, saying we were lucky to win this competition in 2005. But we came through a difficult group that year, beat Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus and Chelsea, and then Milan in the final. Surely that can't all be down to luck. We came into this tie as underdogs, but we're in a great position. Now we have to make the most of it."
The return of Samuel Eto'o, combining with Ronaldinho and the young Argentinian Lionel Messi for Barcelona to make up one of the most feared trident attacks in world football, will make Liverpool's task all the more daunting, though there is quiet confidence that the Cameroonian's impact can be nullified. The whispering among Barcelona's travelling squad yesterday was less about their own strengths and more about Liverpool's - what threat the likes of Gerrard and, in particular, Peter Crouch could pose tonight. And then, of course, the hosts will have Jamie Carragher.
The England centre-half will equal Phil Neal's club record of 57 European Cup appearances tonight. "I don't think there's a better centre-half in the country, and I'm not just saying that as a friend," added Gerrard. "His performances back that up, and he was top drawer in Barcelona. We'll need that again.
"Eto'o has proved he's one of the best strikers in the world and, despite what some people said, Ronaldinho looked in great shape when he took his top off after the first leg. One average performance and everyone thinks he's lost form or put a bit of weight on, but he's just set himself unbelievable standards, so people expect him to score hat-tricks or wonderful free-kicks every game.
"We know what they are capable of and they'll be really confident that they can secure a result here. But, like any side, they have their weaknesses. We had a game-plan over at the Nou Camp that worked really well. The manager has another for the second leg. It's our task to put that into practice and keep our season alive."
Benítez demands home heartache to act as spur
Kevin McCarra
Tuesday March 6, 2007
The Guardian
Manchester United won in stoppage-time at Anfield on Saturday, but Liverpool have ambitions to take an even later victory from that match. So far as Rafael Benítez is concerned that defeat that will serve his players well if they can repeat the overall performance tonight. With a 2-1 lead from Camp Nou, the side is well placed to knock out the Champions League holders Barcelona this evening.
The manager's message to his men was given a wider airing yesterday. "We played better than them," Benítez remarked. "I said to the players that if you can play against United, who are top of the table, and you can control them then that is really positive. When you play against Barcelona you can do the same. Why not?"
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This was no loose comparison. Liverpool were steely against United and the manager's emphasis was on avoiding mistakes. "We need to have more concentration this time," he said. The discipline of the line-up is always to the fore in Benítez's mind.
Today's encounter is a curious one. A 2-0 win would put Frank Rijkaard's men through to the quarter-finals, but even if Liverpool were to go ahead, two goals for the visitors would still take the tie into extra-time. Much as Benítez valued the victory two weeks ago, making maximum use of it is a thought-provoking topic.
"It is really difficult when you play against a top side like Barcelona when you come here for the second leg with this advantage," he claimed, even if few pity him. "How can you manage the situation? Our aim is to win the game. We are not talking about a draw or losing 1-0."
The best insight into his likely approach surely came when he spoke about ways of recording victories. "Some people think that to win the game you always have to [go for] them," he reflected. "Sometimes it is best to wait."
He is right to counsel patience. Barcelona hint that their situation is so bad that this return match verges on being a write-off. Benítez scoffs, knowing that Deco, Lilian Thuram and Samuel Eto'o have all enjoyed recent rests precisely in the hope that they will give peak performances at Anfield.
The records show that a home defeat in the knock-out phase of the Champions League has not been reversed since 1996, when Ajax lost to Panathinaikos 1-0 in Amsterdam before rallying to beat the Greeks 3-0 in the return leg and get to the final. "The statistics are not important when you play against good players," an uninterested Benítez said of that.
His emphasis is on the battle of wits. He was reflecting that Racing Santander's 6ft 7in Serb Nikola Zigic may be the only striker in Spain who is reminiscent of Liverpool's own tall striker. "Peter Crouch is a big problem for them," he said of La Liga clubs. "They don't normally play against that kind of player."
Crouch did cause havoc when Liverpool won an away match with Real Betis in 2005, but Benítez may have been bluffing when he highlighted the attacker. He might as easily prefer to hit on the break through Craig Bellamy and Dirk Kuyt. "They don't know because I don't know," he said when asked if his men had worked out the line-up. The manager does not care to inform until an hour before kick-off, but in a match of this magnitude his mind was surely made up long ago.
Carles Puyol last night admitted Barcelona would have to muster a "perfect" performance if they are to overcome their first-leg deficit.
The Catalans' captain and defensive inspiration conceded that patience would be required if the hosts' advantage is to be eroded. "It'll be a tough game against an excellent side who are strong in defence and on the counter," he said.
"We'll have to play an almost perfect game to get a result, but that's what we're going to try and do. We've got to play our own style and concentrate. We can't go all-out gung-ho in attack, but countering their style would constitute a perfect game for us."
All in the mind for Liverpool before Barca clash
By Trevor Huggins
LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - The verbal salvo that Frank Rijkaard aimed at Rafa Benitez will add to the highly-charged atmosphere surrounding Barcelona's visit to Liverpool on Tuesday.
The Barca coach ridiculed his counterpart's contention that he knows how the holders will play at Anfield when they seek to overturn a 2-1 deficit from the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie at the Nou Camp two weeks ago.
Benitez said on Monday he expected Rijkaard to send out a three-striker attack in a quest for goals from the kickoff.
The Dutchman replied: "I think it's great to play against a team whose manager knows everything, But...people who say they know everything are often the ones who know the least."
If Benitez is right, however, Liverpool need to re-build Fortress Anfield to withstand Barcelona's attacking force.
A 30-match unbeaten home Premier League run could not have ended at a worse time in Saturday's dramatic late defeat by Manchester United.
Putting that behind them will be vital for Liverpool, even though they will go through to the quarter-finals with a draw or even a 1-0 defeat.
"We must be ready and positive, and we must remember that we were better than United for a long time," Benitez told Liverpool's Web site (www.liverpoolfc.tv).
"We knew that these few days would define our season, we have lost one and have Barcelona now. We must realise what possibilities we now have in the Champions League."
Barca have the attacking talents of Ronaldinho, Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi, but Rijkaard's men can expect a wall of sound from the Anfield faithful, who played a big part in their team's run to a victorious final against AC Milan in 2005.
MISSING TERRY
Chelsea will be without captain John Terry when Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho faces his old club Porto, who he guided to Champions League glory in 2004, at Stamford Bridge.
England skipper Terry is still not ready after being knocked out in their League Cup final win over Arsenal on Feb. 25 and will miss a tie that is finely balanced after a 1-1 draw two weeks ago.
However, Mourinho should have Dutch centre half Khalid Boulahrouz back after a shoulder injury.
Ivorian striker Didier Drogba, who scored his 29th goal of the season in Saturday's 2-0 league win at Portsmouth, will again lead the attack, most likely flanked by Andriy Shevchenko.
Like Chelsea, Valencia will have the away goals rule on their side when they host Inter Milan after a 2-2 draw at the San Siro.
The Spaniards have made much of a tight defence and rapid counter-attacks this season, tactics which are destined to punish Inter if they repeat the mistakes of the first leg -- when Roberto Mancini's side were twice in front.
Olympique Lyon need to keep a close eye on AS Roma skipper Francesco Totti if they are to avoid conceding a potentially fatal goal at home after drawing 0-0 in Italy.
Lyon manager Gerard Houllier told reporters on Monday: "Totti is a world-class player. You can't judge him on his World Cup because he was just coming back from a serious injury and didn't have time to prepare for it properly.
"My defenders will tell you that he is a very difficult customer."
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