Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has made it very clear that his team cannot give an inch to Real Madrid in the second leg of the Champions League quarter finals.
The Reds were defeated 3-1 in the first leg at the Spanish capital as Vinicius Junior scored a brace and Marco Asensio scored the other goal for Zinedine Zidane’s men. It was Mohamed Salah who scored the crucial away goal for Liverpool.
Klopp is still very hopeful that his team can turn it around in the second leg. However, the German tactician feels that given how clinical Real Madrid are they simply cannot give them chances.
“To beat Real Madrid you have to defend at your absolute highest level because their offensive qualities are incredible and even then it’s really difficult,” Klopp told a pre-match press conference.
“The first goal they scored is a good example of it; for most of the teams in the world, it was not even half a chance, but the pass from Toni Kroos and the first touch and the finish was absolutely incredible.
“So even when you defend well and deny them a lot of things, these things are still possible. For the next two goals, our percentage of involvement was too high, definitely.
“So, we have to defend at a really high level and we have to create ourselves – and that’s what we will try. I cannot invent any new things just because we are 3-1 down, we will use the usual tools of football – or will try at least.”
Liverpool are one team that has experienced several comebacks in the past and hopefully Klopp’s men will be looking to take inspiration from those fixtures. One of the most famous turnarounds in football history was the one in Istanbul. The reds were three goals down at the break and returned with relentless zeal to score three and restore parity and finally won the match on penalties.
Klopp’s men will not have to look in the past, their recent comeback in the Champions League came in 2018-19 season when they lost 0-3 to FC Barcelona in the first leg in Camp Nou. They came back with an astonishing 4-0 win in Anfield to go through and eventually defeated Tottenham Hotspur in the finals. They will look to replicate a performance like that against Los Blancos.
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