THERE was a point between the second and half time where the whole ground fell silent.
It was as if everyone in the place had a moment. Had this moment:
Have you ever seen anything as cool as that in your whole life?
Have you, though?
There have been a million and one comparisons made this season between Mo Salah and Lionel Messi. But forget the greatest of them all. Think of George Best, think of all those videos of Georgie Best where defenders look like ghouls, look 1940s, look inept while Best has eons to convert. The easy thing to do, the easy thing I have done too often, is to malign the defending. To say: would modern defenders make a pig’s ear of themselves like that? To say: no way he’s having that much time these days.
The easy thing.
The fact is this — Best was a genius. He was a remarkable footballer capable of remarkable things, capable of dragging a team full of great players by crowning their greatness with his genius. Bobby Charlton and Denis Law were great. But Best was a genius.
Roberto Firmino and Sadio Mane are great. But Mo Salah is a genius.
We hit the interval and he has scored a blinder off the underside of the bar, but forget that one. He bears down on goal, looks at the goalkeeper and dinks him, the ball trickling across the line. That’s the goal. That’s the goal of a man who all of a sudden understands the game in a way we cannot begin to process.
He may never be able to put it into words, Christ, he may never be in as much of a purple patch as this for the rest of his life — though I doubt that — but he simply is the best at this game of ours in the whole wide world right now. Literally the best at the game the world plays. He knows it and the world knows it. Salah and the ball are there and everything else is limbs and pandemonium and the best thing you have known for all your days, for all your nights.
Mo Salah, the football, the sheer unbridled joy of the enterprise.
Mo Salah and everything is red. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts.
Hold that close.
There is this poor woman who has sat by me for this European campaign. I like her a lot, you know. No idea of her name. Every game I shamble up the stairs stinking of ale close to kick off and there she is. God she loves The Reds. She tends to be calm as anything while I’m a case.
Today it was the opposite. Well, not the shambling and the stinking of ale. But the being a bag of nerves. Roma got on top first half for a bit and she was rocking. There I was. Wise words in between croaky shouting:
These can’t play much better than this. And they can’t keep this up.
They couldn’t. And they couldn’t. For 60 minutes of the game Liverpool dominated, by a mile the better side. Five-nil flattered Roma. The Reds were worthy of six. Of seven. You name it, they deserved it. What a team. What a gang of lads.
It was a demolition.
Hold that close.
Liverpool come out second half and don’t stop. They are relentless. The time between half time and the fifth, you’ve never seen anything like it. You have never known it in a European Cup semi final. There they are, the great players. Mane and a Firmino brace.
From the minute Gini Wijnaldum came on and broke lines, Liverpool have dominated Roma. They’ve not been able to live with the desire or endeavour or the tactical nous. There is five minutes around the hour where Jordan Henderson is irresistible. The match belongs to him, the match belongs to Liverpool.
Second half Roma come out with the following gamble — turn 2-0 into 3-1. It’s not unreasonable but Liverpool run roughshod all over it. Turning 2-0 into 5-0. Dominating.
No one tells you what to do when you are 5-0 up in a European Cup semi final first leg. For my money, you try and make it six. For my money.
But Liverpool suddenly fall between stools. Suddenly lose momentum, suddenly struggle for legs. The adrenaline drops.
What are you meant to do? It excuses nothing but it explains everything.
Hold that close.
You’ve spent your life hearing about great Liverpool sides. There have been some, you know. Before the game me and Steve Graves and Emilia Bona watched Roger Hunt banging goals in. It’s easy to say that defenders look like ghouls, look 1940s, look inept while Hunt has eons to convert.
It is easy to say that.
The truth of the matter is they were great Liverpool sides. The best there were. The best. And you’ve heard the tales. Heard the talk. Know the jive.
The tales were real. They conquered all of Europe. Never going to stop. But they never went 5-0 up in a European Cup semi final. Never were so good, so cool they gave you an ice cream headache. They never boggled the mind. They were amazing. But they stayed on the mortal plane.
But they lifted the trophy. They found that way.
Hold that close.
They grab their 2 back. Fair play to them. Fair enough. They grab it back. They give themselves a sliver of a chance. Their lads scrap it through and pull it out. They keep the tie alive. But they can do no more.
Listen:
– You’ve never seen the like.
– Neither have they.
– It was a joy to be alive
– All those Liverpool players exist and prosper at this level.
– All of them are great.
– One has become a genius.
– The joy cannot be taken away.
Listen, this shouldn’t ever be easy. But Liverpool make it look easy. That they do tells a story of their brilliance.
Liverpool have played a game tonight you will bore your grandchildren about. Liverpool have produced a performance you could dream about. For the sixth time this season Liverpool have sent a message out to Europe. They must be sick of them by now.
Liverpool incredible.
Liverpool inevitable.
Liverpool ineffable.
I don’t know what it is but I love it.
Hold that close, Redmen. Hold that close.
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Yes, Neil.
Only the reds can make a 5-2 victory feel like a defeat though.
More like only Liverpool supporters can grab defeat out of victory.
But it wasn’t a fucking defeat was it. We won 5-2 in the semi. 5 fucking 2.
They keep a clean sheet against us at home and you hold your hands up. But I wouldn’t put money on it
not only a clean sheet, but will also need to score 3 – City needed to do that and how’d that work out?
Shivers down the spine reading that. Wonderful.
Enjoy the ride, relish the joy.
Completely agree. We made Roma fall apart. 5-0 after 69 minutes barely happens in the League Cup let alone against a team that knocked out the ever revered Barcelona. They are so much fun to watch and give so many moments to jump up and down!
I thought Hendo and Milner got massively on top of their midfield. Superb all night. All Gini missed was a goal but his 3 stepover/drag backs made up for that. Gutted for Ox but hoping Emre offers some backup soon.
As for Mo, we need to find out what it’ll take for him to stay for 10 more years. He never ceases to amaze. What a talent and had the grace to score like he did and still not celebrate. Love him!
As pleasurable to read as witnessing *that* itself.
Superb, Neil.
Well captured Neil. What a game. Between 2 and 3 up with 90 to go. I’d take it. Got no choice. But I’d still take it. Perhaps there was an element of complacency towards the end? But i prefer how neil sees it… a drop in adrenaline. After all, there were two teams on the pitch.. even if one was only half a team!
Liverpool incredible.
Liverpool inevitable.
Liverpool ineffable.
I dearly love a man who uses the world ineffable!
That took me back to school assemblies. ‘Oh measureless might, ineffable love’. Sums it up teally :-)
Brilliant. I am fairly confident that not only would we score in Rome, we won’t get beat either.
Hopefully no dodgy red cards and no injuries though.
Just when the British media were questioning why Mo Salah deserves the PFA award of the year ahead of Kevin De Bruyne, I was telling my friends that “f*#$ the PFA, he needs to get the ballon d’or if he helps Liverpool win the CL. F&@# the golden boot, let Harry Kane cry his way to the top scorer….Salah will be happier with the CL”.
Nobody expected Liverpool to score 5 past Roma today, except for a few rabid Liverpool fans including myself. I was hoping for the repeat of the Spartak Moscow game where we won 7-0 but the first 20 minutes surely looked nervous with Kolarov hitting the bar and Liverpool taking their time to get a grip of Roma’s formation.
The next 70 minutes were pure ecstasy….we should been leading 7:0 with all our missed chances. Of course no team in the world is perfect defensively….not even the great Real Madrid or Bayern Munich or even the poster-boy Man City !!
Lovren made a mistake, the penalty was harsh but Roma deserved at least something from this game.
If anything, it makes Liverpool take the 2nd leg more seriously.
No team has ever scored at Roma in the Champions league, so they say..
But no team had beaten Porto at their home ground all season either…until Liverpool went there and hammered them 5:0.
We are the top scorers in the Champions league, we have the best front-3 in the world
and surely we will get atleast 1-2 goals.
Roma will be tough for sure, but their defence is worse than Liverpool and our attack is far better than theirs.
Great stuff Neil! Tonight was absolutely sublime.
Klopp is briliant, but he also brilliantly undoes his brilliance. I mean talk about taking off Mo Salah at 75 mins. Cocky, over-confident some? The whole game just changed in an instant. But, Klopp knows why, so he will have to figure this out by the time we get around to Stoke.
Everyone, yes, including Lovren were superb. The first goal was a nicely weighted ball and you’re up against a very experienced striker in Dzeko. I mean putting 5-0 past them, and Lovren also going close to scoring, come on, what more do you want!
The positive is that we, the supporters, the team, Jurgen and his staff know we have a job to do. We also know that Roma beat Barca because they went in laxed. We know Roma will come in playing dirty and maybe have the refs on their side. What do you expect from fucking Romans?!?
Overall, I don’t feel like it is a loss because I think Liverpool will finish what Hannibal Barca couldn’t in Rome!
Come on you Reds!
Thank you. What a piece! What a reminder!!
By the way, right now LFC are the bookmakers’ favourites to lift the European Cup this year. Just sayin’.
Hold that close.
Neil, my boy, there’s a book there in a collection of your writings over the years. Don’t go all soft in the head with the thought of it. Just keep churning out genius week after week and it will come down the road. You’re a genuine treasure.
What a joy it is to behold these Reds. Somewhere around 5-0, I turned and looked to my son in bug-eyed disbelief and a wave of all those years in the wilderness, all those days and months and years of frustration, came flooding back all at once – even the day Suarez agreed to leave – and I thought to myself, “Dear God, this feels good!” My young lad, who has mercifully not had to drink nearly as deeply from that well of frustration, looked back and I could see in his eyes the very same sentiment.
It can feel good, the footie.
How you can do this, so quickly after the match, is ineffable. (And yes, I had to look it up). Brilliant writing. Unbelievable team. When it was 5-0, it should have been 8-0. What this team can do is out of this world.
Great piece, and some great comments.
We just need to stop asking for too much, I think. We have one of the best and most exciting combinations of forward players in world football. Sure, we don’t have the miserly defence of 1978-79 or 1983-84 – we all know that next week in Rome we’re not going to get a steely 0-0 like those teams could. But the defensive unit is a work in progress; the recent improvements are obvious.
It’s going to be stressful next week. It could be very close indeed. But if we play with our usual courage and positivity, it’s going to take some very bad luck to keep us out of the final.
I think people are wildly underestimating how completely goosed most of the team was by 75 min or so. And not giving Roma any credit for their guts and (belated) tactical changes is very harsh on our own lads. That wasn’t some pub team they were up against, despite the fact we turned them into one for about 50 minutes.
Absolutely mesmeric night. At the risk of boring you Neil at this stage but you don’t half write a good review. Brilliant writing man.
Bravo