Teen helps Liverpool close in on Champions League

LONDON — In the absence of unsettled playmaker Philippe Coutinho, Liverpool turned to an 18-year-old right back making his European soccer debut for some set-piece magic in its Champions League playoff win against Hoffenheim on Tuesday. Trent Alexander-Arnold didn’t disappoint. Talked up at Anfield as a potential star of the future, Alexander-Arnold curled in a free kick from 30 yards to set Liverpool on its way to a 2-1 victory over a German side making its debut in European competition.

“Our little hero,” Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said of Alexander-Arnold, who has been at the English club since the age of 6, has played for England’s youth teams and is making his full breakthrough in the first team this season while Nathaniel Clyne is injured. It was his first goal for the club, in his ninth start. “The free kick is no coincidence, he’s been doing that every day in training,” said Liverpool midfielder Jordan Henderson, one of a number of senior players who are happy to hand over free kicks and corners to the teenager. “Now he’s done it on the big stage.”

Coutinho usually hogs the set pieces for Liverpool, but the Brazil international is currently not available, with the club saying he has a back injury. Coutinho put in a transfer request last week after he was the subject of a second bid from Barcelona, which Liverpool rejected before saying he was not for sale.

Liverpool — a five-time European champion — is on course to reach the group stage without its star player after Havard Nordtveit inadvertently deflected substitute James Milner’s cross from the left high into his own net to make it 2-0 in the 74th minute.

Substitute Mark Uth gave Hoffenheim a glimmer of hope going into next week’s second leg at Anfield when he chested down a long ball forward and drilled an angled shot into the corner in the 87th.