Reds get ticket to ride
Can’s double gets Liverpool back into the big league
LIVERPOOL: Emre Can struck twice as Liverpool convincingly defeated Hoffenheim 42 at Anfield to reach the Champions League group phase for only the second time since 2010.
Germany midfielder Can found the net twice in the opening 21 minutes, either side of Mohamed Salah’s first Anfield goal following his move from AS Roma, before substitute Mark Uth replied for the visitors.
Hoffenheim old boy Roberto Firmino netted a fourth goal in the second half and Sandro Wagner’s late header proved anecdotal as Juergen Klopp’s men completed a 63 aggregate victory.
“I do not have enough words. It is amazing,” Liverpool manager Klopp told BT Sport.
“It is 14 months of the hardest work and it feels amazing.
“A big, big, big compliment to my team. “They played a perfect opening half an hour. I asked them at halftime to remember the feeling they had at 30 and to put it away.”
Now unbeaten in 15 home games against German teams, Liverpool will learn their groupstage opponents during the draw in Monaco, which for the first time will feature five English clubs in the competition.
Liverpool join Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City, who qualified via the English Premier League, and Manchester United, who engineered their own Champions League return by winning last season’s Europa League.
Liverpool will be making their first appearance in the Champions League proper since 201415, when they were eliminated in the group stage.
Klopp was once again without Barcelona target Philippe Coutinho, who is both ill and nursing a sore back, but the sizzling interplay of Firmino and Sadio Mane meant he was not missed.
The fivetime European champions took a 10thminute lead against continental firsttimers Hoffenheim courtesy of the first of several delightful interchanges between their forward players.
Firmino’s delicately weighted throughball freed Mane and he backheeled the ball into the path of Can, whose shot found the net via a heavy deflection off the sliding Havard Nordtveit.
Egyptian winger Salah struck in the 18th minute, tapping in from close range after Georginio Wijnaldum’s shot from Firmino’s cutback bounced back off the righthand post.
Three minutes later another Mane backheel yielded another goal, the Senegal winger’s touch releasing Firmino, whose cross was adroitly volleyed home by Can.
Hoffenheim coach Julian Nagelsmann took swift action, sending on forward Uth for defender Nordtveit, and four minutes later Dejan Lovren’s loose pass allowed the substitute to reduce the arrears with an angled drive.
After Wijnaldum and Mane had gone close, Liverpool added a fourth in the 63rd minute when skipper Jordan Henderson robbed his Hoffenheim counterpart Kevin Vogt and charitably teed up Firmino for a tapin.
Wagner completed the scoring with a header from Andrej Kramaric’s left wing cross, but by then all hope of a Hoffenheim comeback had vanished.
“We didn’t manage to implement our gameplan. We were running around like headless chickens,” said Nagelsmann.
“We played well in the first leg, but today we didn’t. Maybe the team was a bit too emotional. For the first 30 minutes, there were players who didn’t seem to be on the pitch at all.”
Sporting Lisbon thrashed Romanian outfit FCSB 51 in Bucharest, the visitors scoring four secondhalf goals after Seydou Doumbia’s 13th minute opener was cancelled out by home defender Junior Morais.
Marcos Acuna, Gelson Martins, Bas Dost and Rodrigo Battaglia were all on target for Sporting, who blew their opponents away following last week’s 00 draw in the Portuguese capital.
Dino Ndlovu grabbed the vital goal as Qarabag became the first team from Azerbaijan to reach the group stage, qualifying on away goals despite a 21 defeat away to FC Copenhagen.
Georgi Schennikov and Alan Dzagoev scored as CSKA Moscow downed Switzerland’s Young Boys 20 in Russia to wrap up a 30 aggregate victory, while APOEL of Cyprus progressed 20 overall following goalless stalemate at Slavia Prague.