Liverpool FC is in the CL semifinals: Klopp’s restrained joy

Far more than the result, Benfica Lisbon should remember the experience on Wednesday evening. Although the Portuguese record champions were expected to lose to Liverpool Football Club in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, the fans applauded their team as if they had just sensationally defeated the favourites. In a touching tribute to their own club, one of the sports clubs with the most members in the world, the supporters expressed their pride that Benfica had stayed in the competition up to this Wednesday, in contrast to arch-rivals FC Porto, who had already failed in the preliminary round – as the only one Club from Portugal.

The 5,000 or so people from Lisbon didn’t have enough after 90 minutes of the game, so they voluntarily extended their stay in the stadium on Anfield by three quarters of an hour. Almost in a continuous loop, people declared their affection for the club (“Eu amo o Benfica” – I love you, Benfica), so loud that the chants could be heard clearly even in the cabin aisle. Spontaneously, the team around coach Nélson Veríssimo felt the need to return to the field as a team to say thank you for the support.

Even long after the game, they still didn’t have enough: the fans of Benfica Lisbon.

(Photo: Darren Staples/dpa)

The players applauded their supporters for minutes, visibly touched but also embarrassed and a little nostalgic at the missed historic opportunity to take the club to the semi-finals of the premier class for the first time since 1990. At that time, Benfica failed at AC Milan. After all, none of the pros had to grieve because everyone gave their last shirt for the club – both in terms of playing and in the form of shirts given to supporters as souvenirs.

Benfica celebrates, while Liverpool’s players and coach Klopp are curt

In one of the most beautiful gestures of this Champions League season, some fan paraphernalia even went to the law enforcement officers lined up in front of the away block. One of the security guards visibly proudly pulled one of the Benfica shirts over his uniform. The exuberance of the visiting fans, who enjoyed their visit to Anfield as long as possible and ultimately until closing time, contrasted with the behavior of the home fans, who left the stadium relatively quickly despite progressing. All Liverpool players and their coach Jürgen Klopp were similarly short. Klopp even had to put the restrained joy into perspective at the press conference by joking that he should be “slapped in the face” if he no longer thought he was “in seventh heaven” after a semi-final entry.

But unlike Benfica, who combined the high point of the season with the showdown and accordingly spent themselves until the final whistle, Liverpool tried to do their duty as sparingly as possible. After the 3-1 win in Lisbon, this seemed to be almost fulfilled, but it still had to be formally confirmed in the second leg. When the Reds then played 3-1 like a week ago – after Ibrahima Konaté’s opening goal (1-0/21st), the double strike by attacker Roberto Firmino (55th/65th) and Benfica’s interim equalizer by Gonçalo Ramos (1:1/32.) – it was probably not the team’s fault that the attention abruptly dropped.

Thoughts wandered – perhaps to an unprecedented quartet of seasonal titles possible after winning the League Cup in February. Liverpool would first have to get rid of Manchester City, their big opponent, in the semi-finals of the FA Cup on Saturday. Six days after the spectacular Premier League clash (2-2) that left Liverpool one point behind City in the table.

Champions League: Accurate striker this evening: Liverpool's Roberto Firmino (2nd from left) scores his second goal.

Accurate striker this evening: Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino (2nd from left) scores his second goal.

(Photo: Jon Super/AP)

Aware of the challenge of currently twelve competitive games in 39 days, Liverpool let the game against Benfica run out noticeably in idle mode and promptly conceded the 3: 3 in a confused final phase – after goals from the Ukrainian Roman Jeremtschuk (73rd) and the young Darwin Núñez (81st). That Liverpool Echolocal mouthpiece of the LFC, wrote appreciatively that Benfica “never wanted” to accept their fate of elimination.

For the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Klopp exchanges almost his entire starting XI

However, the draw was ultimately comfortable enough to reach the semi-finals of the European flagship competition for the twelfth time (which only Manchester United has managed on the island so far). The game really “didn’t go according to plan”, Klopp admitted, but “everything” that counts at this stage of the season is the result alone.

The real success for the Reds was probably to have spared as many resources as possible. With seven changes, Klopp almost completely replaced his much-used starting eleven – compared to the league summit at City. In addition to full-backs Andrew Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold, defender Virgil van Dijk was also given a break. Other regulars like Fabinho, Thiago, Sadio Mané and Mohamed Salah only came on in the second half. As a result, Liverpool have now replaced 26 professionals before the 70th minute in ten premier class games – in the league at that time there were only 36 personnel changes in 31 games (where only three instead of five changes are allowed).

The curious statistic suggests that Liverpool are mostly dormant in Europe due to their depth of squad and a favorably drawn tournament path this season. And that could continue until the final, because with FC Villarreal in seventh place in the Spanish league, the supposedly most pleasant of the remaining semi-final opponents is waiting. For Liverpool FC, the result will count more than the experience.

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