I can only find one of the group games, so I have skipped ahead to the knockouts. If anyone can find me the full set of six games, I will add them to the series.
Steven Gerrard meeting Neil Mellor’s “lovely cushioned header” with a half-volley only minutes from time in their final group game had Liverpool scraping into the knockout stages ahead of Olympiacos, however the Reds would be without their talisman or his midfield partner Xabi Alonso as they hosted Bayer Leverkusen at Anfield. The German side had topped their group, thrashing Real Madrid 3-0 to partially avenge their 2002 final loss.
Up front for Leverkusen were two players who would become notable for different reasons amongst Liverpool fans in the years to come. A blonde pony-tailed Andriy Voronin would join Liverpool, better-known for complaining about the city than anything he did on the pitch.
Here, the Ukrainian, slightly harder to recognise with his darker hair, partnered Dimitar Berbatov, who would join Liverpool’s rivals Manchester United and score the first hat-trick by a United player against Liverpool for 64 years, as Liverpool suffered another defeat under the useless Roy Hodgson.
Rafa Benitez’s defensive gameplan revolved around the Bulgarian: “We had known, because Berbatov’s touch was so good, that we had to win the second balls if our central defenders, [Jamie Carragher] and [Sami] Hyypia, could not control him. Leverkusen’s system relied heavily on their wide players, so we had instructed our midfield to come narrow when we did not have possession, and we knew we needed to be aware of [Carsten] Ramelow’s bursts from midfield too. They liked to pass the ball out from defence, so we told Luis Garcia [actually Harry Kewell] and Milan Baros, our forwards, to press them as high as they could.”
Benitez’s explanation is a little confusing (why pull the midfield narrow if Leverkusen’s threat is out wide?) but makes more sense upon watching the game. The “wide players” he refers to are Paul Freier and Jacek Krzynowek, who lined up alongside Robson Ponte in Leverkusen’s attacking midfield line. Despite nominally being wingers in Leverkusen’s 4-1-3-2 formation, Freier and Krzynowek would typically tuck inside, so Garcia and John Arne Riise keeping narrow ensured there was no space for them to pick up the ball, while Igor Biscan and Dietmar Hamann left little room for Ponte or Berbatov.
Liverpool also controlled Leverkusen well with their pressing. Baros and Kewell would chase down the centre-backs, although the latter sometimes stayed back close to Ramelow in midfield, and as Liverpool kept narrow through the middle, the only option was either to hit the ball long towards the forwards, which was easy for the Reds to claim, or to pass the ball wide to the full-backs.
Riise and Garcia would then rush out to close down the full-back while Djimi Traore and Steve Finnan would move out to cover Freier and Kryznowek moving wide, trapping them against the touchline.
This meant that, despite being a very top-heavy side, Leverkusen struggled to create anything against Liverpool.
While Liverpool kept it tight in midfield, Ramelow was often left by himself to protect the Leverkusen defence. Liverpool took full advantage of this: Garcia would tuck inside between the lines, often enabling Kewell to drift towards the right and pick up the ball on his left foot facing the goal. With Ramelow unable to cover both of them, one was always left free and Liverpool’s opening goal came from Garcia making a run through the middle, catching Juan square to reach the ball first and slide it under Hans-Jorg Butt.
Providing the assist was Biscan. The Croatian was superb in this game, probably the best player on the pitch – one of many strange performances in this run where players who had been written off in a Liverpool shirt put in masterclasses.
For the goal, he avoided the attention of Ramelow and slotted a perfectly-weighted through ball towards Garcia. With Hamann sitting back, Biscan was given the opportunity to venture forward and he was using this opportunity to pick out the kind of passes that ensured Alonso and Gerrard weren’t missed.
Likewise Milan Baros’ tireless running and willingness to work the channels proved too much of a handful for Leverkusen’s centre-backs to deal with, bumping them off the ball if they dallied.
Whenever Leverkusen gave the ball away near the midfield, Liverpool would counter-attack with deft touches from Garcia and Kewell and direct sprints from Baros, with Riise often joining them from the left.
A free-kick from the Norwegian doubled Liverpool’s lead and they looked comfortable. “Don’t rush anything,” said Benitez at half-time. “Play the goal kicks long. Try to stretch them, and make sure we don’t give Berbatov too much space.”
While they gradually dropped off further and further to defend their lead, Liverpool looked just as comfortable in the second half as they had in the first. Leverkusen had already set up in such an attacking formation that their attempts to claw their way back into the game were simply like-for-like attacking changes, doing nothing to alter the fundamental system that hadn’t troubled Liverpool.
A Hamann free-kick seemed to be the finishing touch on an excellent European night at Anfield, only for Jerzy Dudek to spill a shot straight to the feet of substitute França, gifting Leverkusen an away goal and thus a lifeline for the return leg in Germany with the last kick of the game.
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