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Hope sprang eternal because this is Anfield, the partisan, stubbornly inhospitable place where European comebacks have become an art form and folk memory.
Long before kick-off, they were, of course, dialling down the list of clubs who had arrived here with an advantage and left with nothing: Barcelona 2019, Olympiacos 2004, right back to St Etienne 1977, when a skinny-legged David Fairclough danced through the French midfield and sent Liverpool on into a European Cup they won.
This challenge seemed every bit as great as those because, although Galatasaray brought a mere one-goal advantage, something at the heart of Liverpool is malfunctioning. A club whose glories have always been based on the collective is suddenly a group of moving parts. ‘Not a team but a team of individuals, as Jamie Carragher put it in a searing and significant analysis on Sky’s Monday Night Football this week, after the late capitulation to Tottenham Hotspur which in so many ways felt like a defeat.
The white heat of the cauldron very much measured up to those mighty nights of yore and a ban on Galatasaray fans imposed after their trip to Juventus helped, though the Turks’ 220 so-called permitted ‘VIPs’ did a lot of whistling for people in the posh seats. Away fan bans have been routinely flaunted down the years
A contributory part to the rather preposterous spectacle that the Turks presented, rolling around to feign injury, egged on by a manager wearing a black suit, patent black shoes and an outsized club scarf. Hard to compute how Arne Slot’s side had managed to lose twice to the side this season.
Madness, so much of it, for half an hour or so, with Liverpool contributing through the same zany efforts to score we’d witnessed here on Sunday. Hugo Ekitike and Fabian Wirtz seemed to be engaged in a contest to see who could miss by the widest margin and Mo Salah, still a shadow of the once imperious Kop king, was not far behind. The Salah of last season would have scored five.
Dominik Szoboszlai led Liverpool’s comeback to reach the Champions League quarter-finals
Szoboszlai scored Liverpool’s opener as they overturned 1-0 first-leg deficit to beat Galatasaray 4-0 in the second leg at Anfield to reach in their Champions League last-16 tie
‘Shoot, shoot,’ Anfield implored their team, again and again, their palpable anxiety borne of the knowledge that however poor an opposition, things can currently never be safe with the individuals Slot is sending out struggling to coalesce.
Could someone step up? Become the sentinel that Steven Gerrard was for all those years when European glory became synonymous with this place. As it turned out, yes. Dominik Szoboszlai, saving grace, leader, agitator-in-chief and de facto captain dragged Liverpool up and on.
The Hungarian’s criticism of those fans who had emptied out of the stadium early on Sunday was misjudged, given the desperate meagreness of the performance and the care needed with such pronouncements in the times we are in. But that suddenly seemed immaterial on Wednesday night. Anfield knows a leader when it sees one.
It was he who strode into the fringes of the penalty area just beyond the half-hour mark, to strike home the ball which Alexis Mac Allister had placed there in a clever corner set-piece. He who implored this place to keep up the heat and received a response.
He who earned the penalty which should have put this game out of sight long before half-time, as he raced to chase down a ball and was caught by defender Ismail Jakobs. Had Szoboszlai stepped to take the kick, you sensed Anfield could finally expel its nervous energy. Instead it was left to Salah, whose poor kick, weakly struck low and down the centre of Ugurcan Cakir’s goal, was a metaphor for much of his night.
Somewhere amid this monumental chaos, MacAllister had sent a header against the bar after Virgil van Dijk had nodded a ball back to him. It was a measure of the anxiety Slot’s players laboured under that when a lead was finally established, the dam broke, with two goals in five minutes which sent this old place into ecstasy.
Szoboszlai was at the hub again, running a ball up into the path of Salah who cut it inside for Ekitike to run the ball in. Ryan Gravenberch was originator of the third, beginning a move which saw Salah’s shot saved, then following up to drive home the rebound. It felt like old connections restored when Salah took on a ball Wirtz rolled under his studs and unfurled a fourth into the top right-hand corner.
Some of the Salah anthems struck up then, though this wise and knowing football public know a saviour when they see one. The prospect of quarter-final against Paris Saint Germain, who eliminated Liverpool last year, is a daunting one – a challenge which will place them in a different universe to this – but they will be fortified by this night and will have Szoboszlai, warrior soul, to lead them.
