Complacency is a rare visitor to Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool, but there is always a challenge in keeping focus on the present while eyes are on all the prizes. Liverpool’s assignment on Wednesday - a home, second leg in a Champions League quarter-final where they hold a 3-1 lead - could very easily look like the most straightforward match of the 13, across three competitions, that they hope they still have ahead of them this season.
Benfica’s visit to Anfield is sandwiched between the draw at Manchester City that maintained the tantalising poise of the Premier League title race and the same clubs’ FA Cup semi-final, on Saturday.
Wednesday should usher Klopp’s team to the third European Cup semi-final of his era in charge, and, if City are successful in Madrid, towards a possible further summit meeting with City in the Champions League final.
Talk of a quadruple - Liverpool have already won the League Cup - is a distraction quickly dismissed by the Liverpool manager, and Klopp’s immediate task of keeping his players alert to Benfica’s threat is well served by drawing attention to another treble - the three goals scored by Darwin Nunez on Saturday in the Lisbon derby against Belenenses.
Nunez, or just ‘Darwin’ to his growing number of fans, has been the breakthrough talent of this season’s Champions League. He is younger, at 22, than 27-year-old Sebastien Haller who set records for potency in front of goal for Ajax, and the figurehead for Benfica’s progress to the last eight of the competition for the first time in six seasons.
He has scored twice against Barcelona. He netted at Bayern Munich. He headed in the against-the-run-of-play goal that eliminated Ajax in the last-16 round, and he gave Benfica their slender lifeline against Liverpool, taking advantage of an error from Ibrahima Konate soon after half-time in the Lisbon leg.
Benfica v Liverpool ratings
That was the third of the six goals he has registered in his last four games, and some of the homework set for Liverpool’s defenders will have focused on the hat-trick at the weekend.
His first against Belenenses featured a moment of high-class control ahead of his opening goal; there was clever movement to drift between markers for his second; and an excellent angled finish to complete his treble.
The Uruguayan is brimming with confidence, fully knowing he will be animating the transfer market this summer, with interest in him from various elite clubs, and that stand-out performances on the biggest stages, like Anfield, only burnish his reputation.
Klopp identified Darwin as a principal danger. "We know more [now] how they play,” said Klopp of Benfica, “In Lisbon they wanted to isolate Darwin with Konate. We have a lot to do. But we were good at Benfica, I liked it. The main target again is being the one team no one wants to play.”
What does Klopp expect from Benfica? “All I know is what I would do. I would go for it - put us under pressure and try to score early. That's what we expect.”
Klopp has reminded his players that a two-goal lead can very quickly feel fragile. In the last-16 stage, they came back from Milan with a 2-0 first-leg advantage over Internazionale, and had Inter not had Alexis Sanchez sent off two minutes after the Italians took a 1-0 lead at Anfield, the last half hour might have felt more uncomfortable.
“3-1 at halfway is as tricky as 2-0,” said Klopp. “It’s a good basis but if they score one, like Inter did, the game changes. We felt that when Darwin scored last week. We need to make them feel like this is a place they don’t want to go.”
He meant Anfield, of course, with its special acoustics and atmosphere on European knockout nights, although the stadium has not been Liverpool’s greatest ally in the last two years.
Last month Inter came there and won, albeit that the Serie A champions lost the tie. Last season Real Madrid came to Merseyside in the quarter-finals, albeit without a crowd because of Covid-influenced restrictions, and drew 0-0 to go through 3-1 on aggregate. Two years ago, famously, Atletico Madrid eliminated Liverpool at the last 16 stage, turning around an overall deficit to win 3-2 in extra-time at Anfield.
Enough precedents for caution, then, although Klopp declares this season’s squad better equipped than in either of the past two seasons and the most complete he has been in charge of in his six and half years at Liverpool. “We have a bigger squad, high quality, all fit, and more experienced. It’s the strongest.”
