Liverpool 2-5 Real Madrid (Nunez 4′, Salah 14′ | Vinicius Jr 21′, 36′, Militao 47′, Benzema 55′, 67′)
ANFIELD — If you’re looking for an image to define a wretched night for Liverpool, Real Madrid’s fifth goal will take some beating.
Alisson is sat on the floor, his neck twisted to stare at the boots of the man who has just made him look foolish. That man is Karim Benzema, who scored twice against Liverpool for this team in 2014 and is still doing it nine years later. In front of him are three red-shirted defenders, stood helplessly pleading for mercy, like residents of a cattery looking out of their cages as a prospective new owner walks in. One second later, Benzema is grinning and Anfield is broken.
After four minutes on Tuesday evening, Liverpool were in the form of champions. Jordan Henderson has done a double fist bump, Anfield is cheering their team winning throw-ins, Stefan Bajcetic is a child playing passes like a man and Darwin Nunez might just be better at scoring with flicks than regulation shots. Nothing makes sense and everything makes sense all at once.
And then only nothing makes sense. Thibaut Courtois, the brick wall against which Liverpool directed shot after shot towards in Paris last May, has done something extraordinary: he’s committed a sin. Courtois managed to control the ball, miscontrol it and knee it beyond his sphere of influence all at once, like a puppy jumping after a balloon.
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Almost exactly an hour later, Liverpool are behind. Back in the Kop, supporters briefly chant the club’s name on repeat but it is delivered with a giveaway sorrowful tone. Over the next few minutes, the grumbles start after each mistake. In the away end, they bounce and dance as if they cannot believe their luck. And then Real Madrid score again. It gets worse. Much worse. Groans become open shouts of mutiny towards individuals and the whole.
We must talk about Madrid, Don Ancelotti’s mentality monsters who retain a magical ability to create order amid chaos and drag matches, narratives, entire seasons towards their eager hands. This has happened too often for it to be a coincidence and it will happen many more times still, probably to opponents who can put up more of a fight than Liverpool.
It is not simply a question of bottle, either. Watch the way Vinicius Junior turns a quarter chance into a half chance into a goal with two shimmies and a shot. See how Benzema, who lacked elite speed even before the autumn of his career, drops deep to knit together moves and still somehow ends up on the end of them too.
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You can point at Liverpool’s body language if you want. You can conclude, quite reasonably, that Klopp’s players – and the supporters – become beset by fear when faced with adversity. Tackles are missed, runners not spotted, passes played backwards to invite pressure and heads dropping further to the floor all the time.
But that is a symptom, not the disease. Liverpool’s chronic issue is not their response to adversity, but just how often they are forced to stare adversity in the face because they are failing to do the basics right. Gomez looks half-broken. Virgil van Dijk twice stormed out to play a high line and got caught out. Alisson dwelled on the ball to give Real their equaliser. Trent Alexander-Arnold was torn apart by Vinicius but then what else was anyone expecting?
Until some or all of that gets solved, Liverpool will lurch between occasional competence and farce and remain vulnerable to a shellacking when they face any elite opponent in rude health. The best they can hope from the return leg is for mercy as they try to ignore the “Oles”.
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