After scraping into the knockouts, Liverpool made fairly short work of a decent Bayer Leverkusen side. Heading into the quarter-final stage though, the level of competition began to rise significantly.
Liverpool had been drawn against Juventus, the first time the two sides had met since the 1985 European Cup final in the dilapidated Heysel stadium, where an attack by Liverpool supporters saw Juventus fans retreat to a concrete retaining wall. The wall collapsed, killing 39 people and 14 Liverpool supporters were imprisoned for manslaughter.
At the time of Heysel, English clubs, particularly Liverpool, had dominated European football. Seven of the last eight winners had been English sides, the most successful being Liverpool with four.
By the time the two teams met again though, Italian football had well and truly overtaken English. A ban from European competition led to the downfall of English clubs, but a massive influx of money in the eighties and a willingness to import foreign stars saw Serie A pull far ahead of Spanish and German football too.
Any player who wanted to test themselves in the late eighties and throughout the nineties went to Italy. The top sides had such stacked rosters that the likes of Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and Paolo Di Canio couldn’t get a look in and even the smaller clubs like Bologna or Brescia could attract the likes of Roberto Baggio and Gheorghe Hagi. Serie A was so strong that a player like Dennis Bergkamp, who would make a mockery of Premier League defences at Arsenal, was roundly considered a failure at Internazionale.
At the turn of the century, other countries had began to claw back at Italian dominance but they were still comfortably amongst Europe’s best. While Rafa Benitez was holding an impromptu meet and greet with Liverpool supporters in Cologne, AC Milan knocked out Manchester United and, the following week, Inter crushed reigning champions Porto.
Winning the scudetto by seven points that year, Juventus were the most dangerous. They had emerged undefeated from a group containing Bayern Munich and Ajax, then swatted aside Real Madrid in the last sixteen. As Benitez said “looking at the line-ups, few people would have thought we stood a chance. Would Anthony Le Tallec and Scott Carson pose much of a threat to a team boasting Gianluigi Buffon, Pavel Nedved, Fabio Cannavaro, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Alessandro Del Piero, Lilian Thuram, Gianluca Zambrotta and Emerson, under the tutelage of Fabio Capello?
Both teams set up in 4-4-2 formations yet, despite Juve having the stars, it was Liverpool who had the better start.
Liverpool set the tone immediately, chasing down Juventus’ players straight from kick-off and winning back the ball when Emerson over-stretched for it, nearly injuring himself. They pressed high up the pitch and with great intensity, giving Juve no time on the ball. La Vecchia Signora suddenly looked a very fitting nickname for the Turinese, as their panicked players struggled to react to this higher pace, constantly giving the ball away.
Once Liverpool won the ball, they would look to break quickly. They would send long balls toward Le Tallec dropping off between the lines, who could win the ball in the air and hold it up, while also proving a real nuisance to the Juventus defence with his ability to draw fouls.
More often though, the attack “would rest on Milan Baros’ running, as it did so often that season,” explains Benitez. “His task was to try to dart in behind the defenders, leaving Le Tallec to drop deep, pick up possession and try to seek him out.” The Czech was constantly racing down the right channel as soon as Liverpool won back the ball, dragging Cannavaro out wide to meet him, before crossing to meet the late runs of Le Tallec and John Arne Riise into the box.
Nine minutes into the game, Baros was released down the right and his cross was deflected out for a corner by Cannavaro. In a prepared routine, Luis Garcia lost his marker and ran towards the near post, somehow beating 6ft 5 Ibrahimovic in the air despite famously standing at just 5ft 7, nodding the ball towards the back post where Sami Hyypia was on hand to volley the ball into the net.
Fifteen minutes later, Le Tallec tried to find Baros with a flicked ball only for it to go over his head. Baros missing it meant it bounced perfectly into the path of Garcia though, who looped the ball over Buffon from outside the box.
Now sitting on a comfortable lead, Liverpool dropped their intensity and sought instead to simply be very hard to break down.
The workrate of the Liverpool players ensured that there was little space whenever Juventus tried to work the ball forward. Juventus’ players would easily win the battle if they could play Liverpool’s one-against-one, so Liverpool constantly doubled and tripled up on their opponents, cutting Juve off from their teammates and retrieving the ball.
Having no success with their passing game, Juve instead resorted to long balls towards Ibrahimovic. Hyypia dominated the giant Swede in the air though – why he lined up against the big Finn and not the relatively short for a centre-back Jamie Carragher is a bit of a mystery, especially when the trickiness of Del Piero would probably be more useful against the slower Hyypia.
Scott Carson was called into action a few times, usually when one of the centre-backs stepped out and Del Piero snuck in behind them, but the nineteen year-old Future of English Goalkeeping (which he would technically become,although not quite as expected) had a good European debut. Juve were mainly snatching at loose balls rather than carving out chances.
Benitez told the centre-backs at half-time not to try and anticipate the passes into the forwards, standing off rather than stepping in ahead of them, giving Juventus less opportunities for a one-on-one with Carson.
Capello made more significant changes. Nedved came into the middle, making use of the space behind the midfield when Steven Gerrard and Igor Biscan were pulled forward to close down Emerson and Manuele Blasi. This could have been really dangerous early on with the home side’s manic pressing, however, given Liverpool were now mainly sitting back, their centre midfielders generally didn’t move too far away from their backline.
Ibrahimovic also finally began to move over to Carragher’s side for long balls, finding more joy in the air against the Scouser than against Hyypia. Likewise this could have been more dangerous in the first half – Gerrard’s preference for front foot defending meant he would often be slow to retreat and get back next to Biscan, leaving space in front of the defence, but given they weren’t pushing forward quite as much, there was a lot less room for Juve to exploit.
Capello’s changes made the game into a more even contest rather than really tipping the momentum in Juve’s favour. They were now able to work their way through Liverpool, but given the Reds were looking to stay compact and limit the opposition, it wasn’t easy to break them down.
Liverpool also still posed an offensive threat. Juventus would push their full-backs forward into attack, helping to stretch the home side, but Liverpool would look to quickly hit the gaps left behind them on the counter-attack.
Juventus managed to bag an away goal when Carson showed very weak hands, failing to push Cannavaro’s header away from goal (likely mixing it up with the Leverkusen match, I remembered this as being a much later consolation goal, but it actually comes mid-way through the second half). Juventus failed to significantly up the pressure after scoring though, Liverpool’s defence standing strong, yet they must have felt comfortable going back to Turin only one goal down and with an away goal.
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