EXTRA-TIME EURO PAIN FOR LIVERPOOL:
Morata and Co leave Liverpool on their knees as champs crash out in extra time
AT one end stood a giant, at the other lay a devastated figure.
If ever a match was a tale of two keepers it was this one.
Just when Roberto Firmino’s tidy finish four minutes into extratime seemed to have rendered Jan Oblak’s magnificence irrelevant, up stepped the hapless Adrian.
His poor clearance was picked off by Atletico Madrid midfielder Joao Felix then returned to secondhalf sub Marcos Llorente, who beat the Liverpool stand-in with ease.
When the Spaniard repeated the trick almost halfway through the 30 extra minutes, leaving Liverpool in need of two more goals, a Champions League defence was over.
Alvaro Morata’s finish at the death merely compounded the pain of a last-16 exit, all in a fashion that will be hard for Jurgen Klopp and his Premier League leaders to take.
They dominated this second leg, which they started a goal behind, but found Oblak inspired and their own finishing inadequate.
Gini Wijnaldum’s first-half header gave them a lead on the night and Liverpool’s superiority seemed to be heading for the outcome it deserved when Firmino struck.
But Adrian, inactive for long periods, made his unwitting intervention and Klopp and his men, for once, could not muster a great European comeback.
Reds skipper Jordan Henderson said: “We’ve experienced situations like this over the last few years and we know how important it is to stay focused right until the end – that lapse in concentration can cost you.
“We deserved to go through based on the whole performance, so we are obviously very disappointed.”
This, after all, was a contest against the team sitting sixth in La Liga with their much-vaunted defence shipping two to Sevilla in a stalemate at home on Saturday.
Liverpool were always going to dominate possession and after Diego Costa put a half-chance into the side netting after 15 seconds, that is the way it panned out. Equally as predictable were Atletico’s time
wasting tactics. People are washing their hands in less time than it took Oblak to release the ball.
And Costa regaled the crowd with a few familiar tricks only to somehow stay on the right side of referee Danny Makkelie.
The source of early frustration for Liverpool was an inability to create a decent number of obvious chances.
The clearest fell to Firmino but his left-foot prod was beaten away.
At least that turned up the Anfield volume – and it reached a crescendo just before half-time.
Klopp’s inclusion of Alex Oxlade Chamberlain may have raised the odd eyebrow but the Anfield boss clearly thought there was joy to be had down Atleti’s right flank.
Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah and Oxlade-Chamberlain had already given Renan Lodi a hefty dose of anxiety before a 43rd-minute breakthrough came via that route.
After being released by Salah, Oxlade-Chamberlain’s cross was a beauty and got the headed treatment it deserved from Wijnaldum. The timing, in every sense, could not have been sweeter and sure enough a second-half siege materialised.
It was already clear Oblak was going to be the away side’s key man and his full-stretch stop from a low Oxlade-Chamberlain drive was one of a series of high-quality saves.
It was also clear Atletico were not going to offer very much of an attacking threat.
Costa was at his most dangerous when he was hooked 11 minutes after the break, laying into the dugout furniture with some gusto.
Felix did manage to get one dig at goal with Adrian’s save at the second try hardly convincing. But from a long way out, it looked as though Atletico manager Diego Simeone would be happy to go to extra-time and penalties.
He invited the pressure on to his side and it arrived in waves.
Oxlade-Chamberlain smacked a good chance against Oblak and Andy Robertson, with the head, smacked his against the bar. As home dominance continued pretty much uninterrupted, two spectacular overhead attempts from Sadio Mane ended up in the Kop – as did Salah’s shot after he had slalomed past tiring defenders.
There was a moment of drama in injury time when an offside Saul Niguez headed a freekick home. The flag only delayed what was to come, though, as Liverpool’s bid for a seventh European Cup ultimately crumbled. Defender Kieran Trippier, who swapped Spurs for Madrid last summer, said: “Liverpool are very strong at home, I’ve played them so many times in the Premier League. But we knew we’d get our chances. “It was about being clinical in those moments and we were. The way we play is the way we train. “He’s (Simeone) like this on the touchline in training. It’s a joy to learn from him every day and work with him.”