Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 2 Real Madrid 0 in the 2024-2025 Champions League group stage…
THE European Champions, then. Four days before the English Champions.
Tonight was a pleasure. Tonight was a joy. Tonight wasn’t pressure, to yet again paraphrase the Great Man so responsible for so much, tonight was the reward. A reward. A reward for graft done last season and graft done this season. A reward we have long deserved.
Before the match, in the afternoon, they showed the highlights of the two recent finals against Real Madrid on the telly, but the history goes deeper than that – as does theirs. The shared history takes in Andrea Dossena and Yossi Benayoun, takes in such an unlikely scorer in Alan Kennedy. It takes in a lesson for us at Anfield and a lesson for them at Anfield. It’s important to be reminded of that in the context of this.
Because a key part of the context is that Real Madrid are coming to their pot one team, their toughest opponent, their big game and they act accordingly. This may surprise people, but those people won’t have been paying attention. Madrid have toiled in this competition so far and feel vulnerable.
Then they look it. The first half is about Liverpool working Madrid being better, but Madrid being dangerous. Suddenly, almost inevitably, Conor Bradley appears. When Bradley steams Kylian Mbappe everything changes – the dangerous recedes, the vulnerabilities crash into Real Madrid and the game is played entirely on Liverpudlian terms.
The ground responds – good God, does the ground respond – and we get another lesson in what this whole thing is, this organic give and take, this eternal ebb and flow, a reminder in what staggered Bayer Leverkusen supporters to the extent that some decided the noise was piped in.
No, lads. It comes when it is called, comes when the players demand it, comes when there is no alternative and Conor Bradley decided there was no alternative and suddenly Anfield was at heel, attentive and urgent and playing its ideal opponents: highly rated, full of pomp, midtable.
Make no mistake, Madrid needed something from this, at the very least needed not to feel second best; but suddenly that was what they were. When Alexis Mac Allister opens Liverpool’s account, there was no doubt remaining who the better side was and who had been hoping to simply survive a smash and grab.
Better side. Better side is the sort of weird shout which makes little sense, but it suddenly made all the sense. This game is ours, Reds, but they fell a teeny bit back on themselves. The best thing about the penalty for them and the penalty for us was that both made Liverpool decide this advantage needed to be pressed home. Laurels were no longer rested upon.
So many played so well. Curtis Jones continued his bold play for greatest living Liverpudlian. He was just perpetual. Whatever you needed in any moment he was. It was a Swiss Army knife playing football: here, there, everywhere. He was better than them in every phase, maybe something for them to think about.
Bradley’s second half was all swagger, all backing himself and loving us, all third and fourth-man runs, all overloads and all cover. His lungs are hot air balloons, but his quality is breathtaking. He will do for me.
Ryan Gravenberch enjoyed himself. There was a deserved pomp to his performance. Vanilla smile and gorgeous strawberry kiss. The hips swivelled and swayed, and the white shirts never knew.
All four who played in the front three acquitted themselves marvellously. Scarily. Darwin Nunez was unfortunate not to score, but it will come soon. Mo Salah won and skewed a penalty, but Diaz excelled in two positions while Cody Gakpo excelled in his.
The goalkeeper is simply at this level. The level of the European Champions and the league leaders. Caoimhin Kelleher can settle himself into being the business. Everything will come; it’s happening already. Their goalkeeper kept the scoreline reasonable and it was lovely to see him clap The Kop.
When Luca Modric went off, when Anfield applauded, we applauded midfield excellence, 20 years of the stuff. This evening, though, our own was the treat we had been waiting for against the best possible opponent. The second best possible opponent. The best is Sunday. Sunday. It’s worth remembering that in this forthcoming fixture last season Liverpool’s midfield ran the show from 25 to 95.
This year, though, that has gone up. Sunday is everything. It was everything when red circled the day the fixtures came out. We’ll know by then, I thought. We’ll know whether we’re looking at being part of a three or something more.
Well we know now. We know till April, till May, we know what this is, we know enough to know what we are seeing. That isn’t the same as it all happening. That isn’t being complacent. It’s being realistic.
There should be no ceiling to the ambition and there can be no ceiling to the achievement. But that doesn’t mean it happens automatically. It happens because everyone grafts every day, from the manager down. It happens because everyone believes every day, from the manager down.
Everyone believes. Sunday will be what it is. The biggest day.
But everyone believes.
Into these. To be the Champions you need to beat the Champions, this isn’t pressure, this is the reward and eventually they’ll have to send Champions from Mars for us to beat.
Promise.
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“I don’t know what was better the Bradley goal or the fire it ignited in Anfield!”
“This is a different level, but he doesn’t just belong on it, he thrives on it. They did it without that much fuss!!”
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— The Anfield Wrap (@TheAnfieldWrap) November 27, 2024
