Missing Steven Gerrard and Dietmar Hamann through injury, Rafa Benitez would have to be inventive to maintain the slim lead Liverpool had won at Anfield in the first leg.
Key to the plan was Xabi Alonso. The Basque hadn’t played since Frank Lampard had broken his ankle on New Year’s Day so he wasn’t match fit, but Liverpool needed his passing range.
“There was no way he would have been able to maintain a full tempo for ninety minutes. He needed to hold his position, not run too much. There would be others to do that for him. Their job was to feed him the ball; his was to play long, picking out the runs of Milan Baros, our lone striker. With our resources so depleted by injury, there was little else we could do. That season was one of making do with what we had.”
To protect Alonso, Liverpool set up in a 3-5-1-1 formation. The back three added an extra covering player to deal with the striking partnership of Alessandro Del Piero and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Alonso would play ahead of them, with Igor Biscan and Antonio Nunez “acting almost as bodyguards” in front of him, doing the running he couldn’t.
“In the dressing room, we went over the detail of our approach,” recalls Benitez. “Play long for Baros. Luis [Garcia] would try to make the most of the space created in his wake, looking to pick up on second balls. Keep the line at what we call ‘three-quarters’ – not too deep, not too high – and be aware of their attempts to play off Ibrahimovic. ‘Don’t allow their midfielders to run beyond you,’ I told the five players who would play in our midfield. ‘Play simple, keep possession as much as you can, and when we switch the ball, press immediately, as high up the field as you can. Xabi, be ready to hit Baros.'”
Liverpool would start the game in their expected 4-2-3-1 before switching to the 3-5-1-1 after a few minutes. “It is a little trick that managers sometimes use. Often, if your opponents see you start the game in a different way from the one they had anticipated, they will react, adapting their own system to counteract yours. That is the manager’s job, of course, to change his approach depending on circumstances. If you change after a few minutes, it can look more natural. Sometimes, your rivals will not alter a thing.”
Juventus started the match in the same system as they ended the first leg, with Pavel Nedved through the middle of a lopsided 4-3-1-2.
Liverpool really didn’t offer a great deal going forward in this match. They would mostly send the ball long to Baros, but he would stay central, trying to hold up the ball, rather than running the channels. In the first leg, he had real success attacking the space Gianluca Zambrotta left when he ventured forward and dragging Fabio Cannavaro out wide, yet here everything was kept in front of the Juve defence and was much easier for them.
When Liverpool were a bit slower to release the ball, they would push John Arne Riise and Nunez forward alongside Baros and Garcia, then send a long ball towards them, although this rarely troubled Juventus.
Liverpool were instead mainly focussed on frustrating the Italians, and they succeeded. The 4-3-1-2 formation meant Juve were quite narrow, but Liverpool’s set-up meant they packed the centre. They had the three centre-backs, the three midfielders and then Garcia dropping back, meaning there was little space for Juventus to work the ball through the middle.
The back five also gave them excellent defensive width too though. Zambrotta would push forward from full-back on the left while Mauro Camoranesi was usually stationed wide right, although sometimes he would tuck inside and Rubén Olivera would overlap down the outside. The extra man in the centre meant Riise and Steve Finnan were positioned wider though, never far from the touchline, and so always quickly out to meet the Juve widemen.
To ensure Finnan wasn’t having to push too far forward, it was typically Nunez who would engage Zambrotta with Finnan covering down the line, while the higher positioning of Camoranesi meant it made more sense for Riise to step out to meet him, with frequent left-back Djimi Traore comfortable covering behind him in wide areas.
This once again left Juventus struggling to pass through Liverpool, resorting to long balls towards Ibrahimovic. Jerzy Dudek was often ready to run out and claim these himself if they were overhit, leaving little room for error.
Liverpool were also frustrating in their possession, slowly passing it around their defenders and goalkeepers. This meant there was rarely much threat of them breaking the Juve lines, but the home side, in need of a goal, were forced into chasing them in the oppressive Turin heat, needing to win the ball back.
“‘We have to keep possession better. When we get the ball, remember to play through Alonso'”, Benitez told his men at half-time. “For all our detailed planning, in truth, we were not using him quite as much as I had hoped. We needed to get him into the game more, to help us retain the ball and, if we could, create a chance that would get us the away goal that – at that stage – would have probably killed the tie. ‘The central defenders have to be more open when we have the ball, so we can play out from the back. Keep pressing. Look for the space behind Camoranesi. And keep hold of the ball. Don’t let them build pressure.'”
Liverpool immediately picked up in the second half. They began pressing higher, upping the tempo, but more importantly Baros pulled out to the left to begin running the channel again. This caused even more problems for Paolo Montero than it had for Cannavaro in the first leg. Just minutes after the restart, Alonso released Baros, who touched the ball past Montero and barely missed the goal. Later on, Djibril Cisse was introduced to do the same, but with fresher, quicker legs.
Juventus still couldn’t come up with any response. Capello introduced Marcelo Zalayeta for Olivera, adding an extra attacker to the frontline, although Liverpool always maintained plenty of cover at the back, comfortably stopping Juve from creating any half-decent chances.
Holding out, it would be Liverpool who advanced to meet Chelsea in the semi-finals – a team they had already lost to twice in the league and again in the League Cup final that season.
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