Jerzy Dudek’s spill at the feet of França meant Liverpool were uncertain going into the second leg of their last sixteen tie against Bayer Leverkusen, but their performance in the first leg had been otherwise spotless, enabling Rafa Benitez and his assistants the opportunity to think about their potential future opponents.
Preparing to play in Leverkusen the following evening, the coaching staff were staying in Cologne, however the hotel didn’t have the channel which was showing the Chelsea-Barcelona game so they popped down to an Irish pub in town.
“We could not go far, because there were so many people,” recalls Benitez. “All wearing red Liverpool shirts or with red and white scarves draped round their shoulders, standing in front of the bar, craning their necks to see the screen.
“We had not expected so many people, but we were happy simply to watch the game, quietly, and then slip away. That was the plan, anyway.
“As we were watching, another man, just to the side, glanced across at me. He looked away. Then he glanced back at me again. ‘Rafa!’ he shouted. ‘Rafa’s here!’
“‘Ssshhhh,’ I said, raising my finger to my lips, worried that the entire pub would hear, desperate to quieten him down so that we could keep watching the game.
“It did not work. Suddenly, every single person had turned around from the big screen and was staring at us. And then a huge roar went up: ‘Rafa’s here, Rafa’s here.’ People started streaming forward, shaking my hand, congratulating us… We couldn’t move. We edged forward, shaking hands, smiling, saying hello to everyone we could, slowly, slowly inching towards the door. It can only have been a few metres between us and outside, but it took maybe ten or fifteen minutes to get there. And then, when we reached the safety of the door, we walked out and there were two absolutely enormous fans outside, two huge Scousers, shaking our hands, hugging us.
“Soon the pictures would be posted on the internet. It was an incredible experience: I knew about Liverpool’s fans, of course, but I had never met so many all at once.”
Since the first leg, Liverpool had lost two games back-to-back – first to Chelsea in the League Cup final, then against Newcastle in the league – but they went into the game with confidence. “Our aims for that evening were simple: we had to keep the tempo high, try to engineer one-on-one situations for Luis [Garcia] and, most of all, we need to retain possession. ‘Move the ball,’ I told the players as we prepared for the game. ‘Look for Steven [Gerrard] from the goal kicks, win the second balls and then keep possession. That is the main thing. Play it simple.’ That is the best way, the only way, to take the sting out of a game, to deprive your opponents of hope.”
With Gerrard back from suspension, he returned to the line-up in place of Harry Kewell. The Australian had usually dropped off between the lines so the changes to Liverpool’s system were minimal but the captain’s return brought with it a more distinct 4-2-3-1 formation. Stephen Warnock was the only other change, replacing Djimi Traore at left-back.
Klaus Augenthaler faced more of a headache with his team selection. He continued with the same attacking 4-1-3-2 shape, however many of his players had been booked in the first leg, ensuring they would miss the second. Landon Donovan, Marko Babic, França and Daniel Bierofka came into the side, replacing Robson Ponte, Juan, Andriy Voronin and Paul Freier, while Diego Placente moved into the centre of defence from left-back. Hardly the ideal situation to be clawing back two goals.
It was a classic European away performance by Liverpool. They sat back compact and narrow, rarely pressing the Leverkusen centre-backs as they had in the first leg, with Gerrard instead generally hovering around Carsten Ramelow and Milan Baros a little ahead of him.
Win back the ball and Liverpool would release the Czech quickly into the channels, racing down the outside of the Leverkusen centre-backs. Starting out simple and effective, Liverpool’s counter-attacks improved further as the game went on, with clever runs from Gerrard and Garcia proving a nightmare to deal with for a Leverkusen defence who were already struggling with the blunter threat of Baros.
Leverkusen never really had any answer to the narrow defence of Liverpool. The wingers, particularly Bierofka, played wider than they had done in the first leg, trying to make use of the space Liverpool afforded them out wide. Once Leverkusen passed the ball out to the flanks though, the Liverpool full-back and wide or central midfielder would frequently move out and double up on the winger, leaving them isolated and unable to create anything.
Liverpool got two goals following corners. Garcia first flicked a Gerrard cross into the net with the outside of his boot, while his second was a real goal-hanger’s tap-in, stepping in front of the diving Hans-Jorg Butt to divert Igor Biscan’s header in the opposite direction, leaving the goalkeeper with no chance. In the second half, a deflection fell to Baros and he finished the bouncing ball on the half-volley – a just reward for all his hard work.
This left Leverkusen needing six goals to progress, so Liverpool weren’t exactly having to batten down the hatches to avoid a comeback. Leverkusen brought on midfielder Clemens Fritz to replace attacker Donovan, adding a bit of quality deeper to help work the ball forward, but it seemed as much an attempt to plug gaps and stop the score from running embarrassingly high as an attempt to actually turn the tide in their favour. They got another consolation goal with minutes left to go to give their supporters something to cheer, but it was Liverpool who progressed to the quarter-finals with ease.
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