Fabio Capello, looking more than ever like an airbrushed Lou Reed, took a genial stroll past journalists before he headed out of Anfield last Tuesday. The manager had already given his post-match press conference and completed the obligatory television interviews but still perambulated across to pressmen to offer a few extra quotes. Hands in his pockets, eyes twinkling, he was a picture of understated satisfaction. So Juventus had lost 2-1.
Capello knew what result was required in Turin.
Liverpool had just beaten arguably Europe’s best side, scoring as many goals in 25 giddy minutes as Real Madrid, Ajax, Bayern Munich and Maccabi Tel Aviv combined in Juventus’s previous 12Å hours of European football. Yet Capello was cheerful and Steven Gerrard, speaking resignedly to reporters in another corner, had clouds in his golden sky. Supporters felt the same, and one asked in a chatroom later that evening : “How can the best performance and the best win of the season feel in some strange way like a defeat?” Here’s how.
Tuesday left Juventus needing a 1-0 win at the Stadio Delle Alpi to progress: that happens to be the scoreline achieved by Capello’s side after 90 minutes in every one of their home matches in this season’s Champions League. They have won by such a margin in 11 games in all competitions. “Yes, and I’d be happy to win every game 1-0,” said Capello in these pages last week.
That scoreline on Wednesday would see Juventus through on away goals, and there is every reason why such an outcome should be dreaded. Perhaps it is something to do with the careless habits of the British game, but the away-goals rule has provided a mantrap for generations of our footballers. This is the 50th season of the European Cup. How many times in its history has an English team won a tie on away goals? Once, when Liverpool eased past Bayern Munich in the 1980-81 semi-finals. Meanwhile, away goals have eliminated English teams on six separate occasions, five of these coming since the inception of the Champions League.
It is Liverpool’s fortune that Rafael Benitez, though a student of history, is not a glass-half-empty type. “My message for the players is to be positive,” he said. “I am always positive and after the game (on Tuesday) I was even more positive than normal. Why? Because any Italian team is very strong in defence and compact, and has great experience, and Juventus are maybe the worst Italian team of all to face. I ’m positive because against such a side we played very well over 90 minutes. And I think, ‘Why not? Why, in the second leg, can’t we do the same?’ ” Benitez may be aware that 2-1, historically, has not proved as bad a score for a first-leg home side as might be imagined. Going by previous knockout ties in the European Cup proper, Liverpool have more or less a 50-50 chance of progress and are in little worse shape than Chelsea, despite the Londoners’ 4-2 defeat of Bayern. Benitez argued it was the nature of Juventus’s goal, coming from a goalkeeping slip, which had put Anfield on a downer. “If we ’d conceded a more normal goal, as a result of them playing some good passes, people would have said, ‘Okay, 2-1 was a good result. Not the best result for the second leg, but still a good result.’ ”
Remaining positive will be the Spaniard’s approach in Turin. There was similar negativity following Liverpool’s 3-1 first-leg win against Bayer Leverkusen in the previous round, but he showed it to be unfounded. Undaunted by the away-goals equation, and his opponents’ home record, Benitez surprised even Liverpool’s travelling support by playing just as expansively in Germany as at Anfield. They won 3-1.
“There’s no pressure on us,” said Gerrard when he brightened. “The manager has said to us that we’ve nothing to lose, because everyone’s expecting Juventus to go all the way. We’ll need to pull one of Liverpool’s biggest-ever performances out of the bag, but we know we’ve got the quality to go over there and nick a result.”
In Italy, where Juventus divide the public like Manchester United in England, there is a popular website called antijuve.com. On it there is a reminder why Liverpool should not be afraid to be forthright. The site’s photos section (except for a shot of Paolo Montero being sick, accompanied by the caption “Vomitero!”) shows opponents scoring or celebrating goals against Juve. One of the pictures is of Dwight Yorke equalising during Manchester United’s famous 3-2 victory in the Stadio Delle Alpi in 1999. United were uncompromising that night, playing their normal, get-at-’em game.
Compare that with the club’s self-imposed caution in the San Siro last month, where they misguidedly, and vainly, tried to wear down Milan with tactics of attrition. Similarly, Real Madrid abandoned their attacking game in the previous round in Turin and perished in the act of playing for a 0-0. Benitez will not try the same.
He would not confirm whether he will stick with the two strikers system he fielded at Anfield but he did say he would ask for a repeat of the aggressive pressing defence and dynamic attacking game that gave Liverpool that first-leg victory.
“Our high tempo brought us two goals in the first half on Tuesday. We don’t need to be in front of our own fans at Anfield to play that way. We can do it in any game. We need to think that in every match it’s 11 against 11 and the pitch is the same. All you need is a clear idea of what to do and not to be afraid. I said before the first game to the players, ‘You know you can beat the other team’, and I don’t see why that should be any different in Italy.
“I’ve watched videos of Juventus home and away, because sometimes you see a team playing in two different ways, but Juventus’s approach to the game is always the same. On Wednesday they need to win. They need to come at us. If we play compact and then with good counter-attacks, we can win.”
