FIRMINO PLAYS A BLINDER
Brazilian fires late winner to save Reds
The team to beat at home and now, maybe, the team to beat in europe, too. Following on from Wembley on Saturday, here was another huge statement from Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
That it took until the second minute of injury time to be delivered should not detract from its significance. Roberto Firmino merely gave his team-mates the victory they deserved. Both Paris Saint-Germain goals came against the run of play — the second was their only shot of the half — and Liverpool dominated the majority of the match.
That the winner should be the work of a player few expected to be on the pitch only added to the drama that this club feed off in europe. Saturday afternoon, Firmino was in Moorfields eye hospital, a wayward finger from Tottenham’s Jan Vertonghen having dealt him an unusual, serious and painful optic injury.
Monday, said Klopp, he could not have played. But an extra 24 hours allowed Firmino to be on the substitutes bench. When his replacement Daniel Sturridge had run his course after 70 minutes, Klopp bought him on. The significance of this act could not have been known at the time. When Firmino arrived, Liverpool led 2-1 and PSG were showing little sign of life.
There were seven minutes remaining when calamity struck. Mohamed Salah gave the ball away, not for the first time on another comparatively uneven night, and PSG equalised. Looking for silver linings, it was a reminder of how hard it will be to tread a repeat path to this tourna- ment’s final. When loose play lets in a player of Neymar’s quality, and he can give the ball to Kylian Mbappe, goals often result. That is what occurred late in the second half and Klopp’s face told the story. he knew they should have been comfortable. he knows ows he had the better team.
enter Firmino. For a man with one eye, he certainly knew where the goal was. What a finish it was to end the match, and what a response to a personal setback.
Firmino won the header from the corner, then picked up the scraps after Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez had recycled the loose ball, striking it beautifully past goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. Inevitably, it was the goal that launched a thousand puns. eye Caramba; The eyes have It. To the delight of pitchside photographers, Firmino then celebrated with a hand over his eye, as if doing the Moorfields test. In fairness, that probably won’t catch on like the antics ripped from Fortnite.
It was a bigger story than just one man, though. For while the winning margin was always going to be slim, the difference between the sides was not.
For the majority of the match, Liverpool overshadowed the PSG of Neymar, Neymar Mbappe, Mbappe edinson Cavani and Angel di Maria. They dominated the first half, controlled most of the second and could have scored more.
PSG? Most of the second half spent chasing the game was a crashing disappointment. Indeed it was Liverpool, not them, who first had the ball in the net but Sturridge was ruled to have fouled Areola before Salah tapped the ball in.
It is the intensity that sets Liverpool apart on european nights like this. PSG are not the first opponents, and will certainly not be the last, to endure passages of play when they simply cannot contain them. Roughly half an hour in, Liverpool scored twice in six minutes, and PSG seemed completely rattled by the levels of energy and determination they faced. Forget the goals for a minute. It wa was around this time that Liv Liverpool players began tac tackling each other in their det determination to retrieve the ball, on two occasions a tac tackle sending a team-mate clat clattering to the floor. The first time, Jordan henderson son cleaning out Gomez as collateral damage in his desire to shut PSG down, Klopp turned to the crowd behind his dug-out and punched the air in delight. he did that quite a few times during the opening skirmishes, invariably in response to one of those crunching tackles.
One challenge, by the magnificent James Milner on Neymar, brought a cheer louder than for any incident bar the goals. The Brazilian rose, gingerly, his pride hurt more than his body. It wasn’t an old-style violent reducer, just a brilliant tackle, ferocious, committed — and one imagines rather rare in Ligue 1.
When Klopp said PSG won’t have faced a team like Liverpool in recent months, this is what he meant. They won’t have faced too many as magnificently committed to attack, either. Within the first 15, Liverpool had won seven corners. They are truly terrifying in these spells and PSG deserve no little credit for living with them at the back as long as they did. Thiago Silva, the captain, was particularly good — a pity then that it was his resistance that was broken for Liverpool’s opening goal.
It came after 30 minutes. An overhit cross from the right, collected by Andy Robertson on the left and whipped in first time — Kieran Trippier-style — to be met by Sturridge with a header that left Areola no chance.
Sturridge does not bring as much to this team as Firmino — it is hard to imagine who would, given Klopp’s demands and the Brazilian’s tireless fulfilment of them — but this was a beautifully taken striker’s goal, capitalising on Thiago’s failure to cut out the cross. he celebrated in his trademark style: you may find it annoying — no one here did.
Momentarily, PSG lost their way. They had worked so hard to resist, indeed looked almost to have ridden the first red wave, and now this. Just six minutes later they were two down, thanks to a truly calamitous piece of defending.
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Wijnaldum in the penalty area. The space was congested, there was barely a way through, yet the foul was obvious and immediately given by referee Cuneyt Cakir.
Milner stepped up and, in front of the Kop, took a perfect penalty. Areola went the right way but it was low and to his left and targeted with such precision, prescience was no ally.
This was Liverpool at their best. That Salah removed a layer of clothing before taking a corner kick says something — here was a performance too hot for a man born in Egypt.
That PSG went in at half-time only one down is testament to their powers of recovery as well as Liverpool’s propensity for self-harm.
They might have come away with only a point against Tottenham having dominated, too, and they let PSG back in undeservedly here before half-time. Bernat played the ball to Di Maria and his cross struck Robertson, falling to Thomas Meunier to lash it past Alisson.
In a knockout game that could have been fatal. Here, it was largely a disappointing nuisance. And Firmino corrected the result at the last, anyway, restoring Klopp’s 20:20 vision.