JAMIE CARRAGHER ON THAT LIVERPOOL COMEBACK:
SO that is what ‘heavymetal football’ under Jurgen Klopp looks like. It is relentless, intense and dramatic and leaves you breathless. For the first time since I retired, I got home from a game on Thursday and felt like I had played.
My mind was racing and I found it impossible to sleep. That was something I became accustomed to during my career but, having sat through Liverpool’s extraordinary comeback against Borussia Dortmund, I had all the emotions of how it used to be as a player. That is how good it was.
I never really used to appreciate the atmosphere inside the stadium for these occasions because I would put myself into a zone where all that mattered was winning. You concentrate so hard about what is happening in front of you, everything else gets blocked out. You play in a bubble.
The exception was Chelsea in the Champions League in 2005. The noise when we went out to warm up that night was like nothing I had heard before and I remember looking around Anfield in the six minutes of stoppage time and seeing scarves twirling as fans did all they could to pull us over the line.
So it was different to be sitting with my son and be able to take everything in, to focus on the way You’ll Never Walk Alone was sung and actually experience the fun my family and friends have had down the years!
But Thursday night also took me back to my childhood. I was fortunate to experience so many great nights representing Liverpool but my best experience as a fan was the 1985 European Cup Winners’ Cup semi-final, when Everton battered Bayern Munich into submission.
I was seven then but the memory of watching Graeme Sharp and Andy Gray tear into German defenders never left me and I never imagined it would be surpassed until Dejan Lovren rose at the far post to send Liverpool into the Europa League semi-finals.
Very few clubs have these nights, when the impossible becomes possible. Manchester United have them, Chelsea, in recent years, have had them but, with Liverpool, they keep happening over and over again. It isn’t about players or one individual manager; this is part of the club’s fabric.
What sticks with dramatic games I played in was the feeling that whenever we attacked The Kop, something was going to happen. Nobody would say anything on the pitch about having the opposition where we wanted them but you always had that sense you would get there.
It was interesting to hear Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel say ‘it was not logical’ how his team lost. At 3-1, the game should have been dead and buried, so it was brilliant to see, once again, Liverpool find a way of winning when all seemed lost.
How else do you explain it? Games that go down in folklore happened before I kicked a ball for the club, they happened during my 18 years and they are still happening now. Borussia Dortmund will forever be placed alongside Club Bruges (1976), St Etienne (1977), Olympiacos (2004) and Chelsea. By the end of May, it might prove to have been the greatest ever.
FOr that to happen, Liverpool must go on and lift the trophy. The reason those matches have stood the test of time is because the team went on to finish the job.
If Klopp can get Liverpool over the line, it would be an extraordinary achievement. I wrote about him on this page on January 16 and said that he was facing a harder task to revive the club’s fortunes than any manager since Bill Shankly in 1959.
The day after, Liverpool lost 1-0 at home to Manchester United. They were the better team but did not play well and nobody who left the ground that day would have expected the season to have the potential for a spectacular finish.
It is all down to Klopp. When I am at Liverpool games now, I find myself watching him as much as the action.
I love the way he urges his players on. I love how he gives the crowd energy, acting like a cheerleader and punching the air when a strong tackle is made. I would have loved to play for him.
If his start was slow — with the exceptions being wins away at Chelsea and Manchester City — his reign is gathering momentum.
There was no doubt Liverpool got themselves a special character and manager, as his CV proved. The challenge was whether he could be a special Liverpool manager.
That is how things are starting to look. He is the perfect fit for the club. He has engaged the passion and emotion of the fan base and he has been responsible for changing the mood in the stadium. He knows what to say and when to say it.
Take Klopp’s team-talk at halftime. James Milner explained how he talked about our experience of winning in Istanbul in 2005.
Divock Origi said that he urged the players to make memories to ‘tell their grandchildren’. Quite simply, he gets what Liverpool is about.
Klopp understands the emotion but, more than anything, he understands the history and he will not be satisfied until he gets his hands on a first trophy.
When Liverpool lost the League Cup Final to Manchester City in February, one of the things he told the squad with certainty was ‘there will be another final’.
Nobody would have anticipated that it could possibly be in the Europa League but, sink Villarreal’s Yellow Submarine and Klopp will have the chance to put his name to that distinguished honours board.
It hasn’t been easy for Liverpool fans in recent years and that is why they will always be thankful for nights that are as spectacular and dramatic as Borussia Dortmund.
Time may yet prove that is their greatest European night of all.