Act VI: A Win That Didn’t Quite Feel Big Enough
Wednesday 29th April, Liverpool at home, and somehow Lazio were playing in a Champions League semi-final. After everything we’d already been through against Manchester City and Inter, there was a temptation to think we’d reached the stage where anything else was a bonus. I didn’t really feel that way. We’d come too far for that. Liverpool were standing between us and a Champions League final, and with the second leg at Anfield I felt we needed to give ourselves a proper advantage in Rome.
We couldn’t have started much better. Three minutes in, Taty Castellanos put us ahead and suddenly a Champions League final didn’t seem quite such a ridiculous thing to think about. We were the better side for much of the first half, but Liverpool survived it and, as you’d expect from a team of their quality, eventually found their way back into the game. Just after the hour Alexis Mac Allister equalised, assisted by Dominik Szoboszlai, and at 1-1 the entire complexion of the tie had changed. A draw at home would have meant going to Anfield needing to win, which wasn’t a prospect I particularly fancied.
Josh Doig restored the lead in the 73rd minute and it was deserved. We finished with 58% possession, 13 shots to Liverpool’s nine and 2.52 xG compared with their 0.83. Then, five minutes after Doig’s goal, Andy Robertson was sent off. Liverpool were down to ten and there were still more than ten minutes to play. This was the opportunity. I pushed harder because 2-1 was a good result, but 3-1 felt like the sort of result that might actually survive Anfield. We threw players forward and tried to find the goal that would give us some breathing room, but Liverpool held on.
Lazio 2, Liverpool 1. A Champions League semi-final victory over Liverpool should have felt enormous, and in most circumstances it would have done. Instead I came away from it with the slightly uncomfortable feeling that we’d left something on the table. We’d played well, we’d deserved to win and we’d spent the closing stages against ten men, but the third goal never arrived. We were ahead, certainly, but only by one.
Now we had to take that lead to Anfield. And I’ve watched enough football in my life to know that taking a one-goal Champions League lead to Anfield is roughly the point where sensible people start worrying.
Act VII: Anfield
The feeling I’d had after the first leg turned out to be justified. We’d beaten Liverpool 2-1 in Rome, but I hadn’t been particularly happy about taking only a one-goal advantage to Anfield, especially after playing the final twelve minutes against ten men. I wanted that third goal because I suspected we’d need it. A week later, Liverpool spent 120 minutes demonstrating exactly why.
They absolutely battered us. There isn’t much point pretending otherwise. We somehow had 55% possession, but that statistic bears almost no resemblance to the match I remember watching. Liverpool had 30 shots, ten on target, 17 corners and 3.52 xG; we managed three shots and 0.37 xG. For an hour, though, we survived. Boselli, Stanković and Bamba defended everything they could, Urbig did his bit behind them, and every passing minute made me think we might actually get away with it. Then Mohamed Salah scored in the 61st minute. Liverpool 1, Lazio 0. Aggregate 2-2.
From there it became an exercise in survival. We weren’t playing for penalties from the moment Salah scored, but Liverpool were simply better than us on the night and there wasn’t much opportunity to do anything except hang on. Somehow we did. Ninety minutes came and went with no second Liverpool goal, which meant extra time, and I couldn’t help thinking back to Rome. One more goal against their ten men and none of this would have been necessary. A 3-1 first-leg victory would have sent us through after ninety minutes. Instead, we had another half-hour at Anfield.
Unfortunately, Salah wasn’t finished. He scored again in the 101st minute and for the first time in the tie Liverpool were ahead. At that point there was no reason to protect anything. Losing 2-0 and losing 4-0 made absolutely no difference, so I threw bodies forward and tried to find the goal that would take us to penalties. It left enormous spaces behind us and Liverpool duly exploited them. Mac Allister scored the third in the 116th minute before João Palhinha added another in the 121st. Liverpool 4, Lazio 0. Aggregate 5-2.
The final scoreline made it look like a demolition, and over the course of the evening Liverpool certainly deserved to win, but it didn’t really tell the story of the tie. We had been ten minutes from reaching a Champions League final after taking a one-goal advantage to Anfield, and two of Liverpool’s four goals only arrived because there was nothing left to do except attack in extra time. We’d beaten Manchester City 7-5 over two legs, eliminated Inter 4-3 and then beaten Liverpool in Rome. Eventually, we met a side that pushed us one step too far.
It hurt, particularly because I’d spent the entire first leg feeling that 2-1 wasn’t enough and had been proved right in the cruellest possible way. But there wasn’t much time available for self-pity. Seven days later there was another final waiting for us, this time at the Olimpico, and the opposition couldn’t have been more appropriate.
Fiorentina.
Alex.
The Coppa Italia.
If we weren’t going to finish the season in a Champions League final, there was still one trophy I very much wanted to win.