Liverpool ‘are far away from giving up’ as Jurgen Klopp’s patched-up side look for a miracle against Barcelona

Think positive | Klopp is not giving hope of reaching second successive Champions League final
Action Images via Reuters/Carl Recine
David Lynch6 May 2019

Liverpool want to ‘fail in the most beautiful way’ if they cannot complete a remarkable Champions League turnaround against Barcelona, Jurgen Klopp has declared.

As a result of a forgettable evening at Camp Nou last week, the Reds trail 3-0 on aggregate going into Tuesday evening’s semi-final second leg at Anfield.

And their task has been even more difficult by the enforced absence of injured strikers Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah.

However, Klopp has vowed that his team will ‘try 100 per cent’ to overcome the odds and reach the tournament’s final.

He said: “I would imagine the place will be rocking before we score already. That is what I expect. If we can score that is what it is.

“But we not only have to score, we have to deny Barcelona from scoring. It is not too often Barcelona does not score. We know how big the challenge is.

“This team, they will try 100 per cent. That doesn’t mean it will work out. We have that result and we have to deal with it but you only can deal with it step by step.

“We don’t have to score three in the first 10 minutes. The last five minutes are enough to score three if it is still 0-0. Let’s give it a try with all we have. That is what we have always done and we will do again.

“There is hope and it is football. We are far away from giving up, but we are not in a situation where we say it will happen 100 percent. But it is football.

“Look, two of the world’s best strikers are not available tomorrow and we have to score four goals to go through in 90 minutes. It doesn’t make life easier but as long as we have 11 players on the pitch, we will try. That’s what we want to show, nothing else.

“We want to celebrate the Champions League campaign, either with a proper finish or another goal. That is the plan: just try and if we can do it wonderful and if not, then fail in the most beautiful way, if you want. With a close result, so close or whatever.”

Barcelona have previous when it comes to suffering a shock European defeat after carving out a sizeable first-leg lead.

Last season, the Catalans were eliminated from the competition’s quarter-finals as they followed up a 4-1 home win over AS Roma with a 3-0 defeat in the Italian capital - a result that saw them go out on away goals.

But Klopp cited his team’s failure to net at Camp Nou as the significant difference.

Predicted line-ups

Liverpool XI: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson, Milner; Wijnaldum, Mane, Origi

Barcelona XI: Ter Stegen; Semedo, Pique, Lenglet, Alba; Busquets, Rakitic, Vidal; Messi, Suarez, Coutinho

He added: “Yeah, but it was a 4-1 away, they had an away goal. We didn’t do that. That is a big difference.

“I don’t want to sit here and give any reason to the Barcelona players to be even more motivated and say we have this and that. I have enough time to talk to my players.

“We have to make a lot of decisions for this game. Tomorrow night will be the third game in six days and Barcelona changed 11 players on Saturday.

“We have to do it our way and that is what we will try, we cannot compare ourselves to Roma or anyone else. We don’t have to.

“The boys showed often enough that

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in