It is fair to suggest that if he has a nemesis at all, then for Jurgen Klopp, it is Real Madrid.
And yet for all the truth in that, he also had perhaps his finest moment as a manager against them, in one of the greatest performances a team has ever produced in the Champions League.
In a contest that crystallised the ragged campaigns of the two teams, with Madrid showing their vulnerability again, we saw echoes of that Klopp masterclass against Real, back in 2013, when his Dortmund team destroyed them 4-1 thanks to a tactical triumph.
Yet if that was the good, then we also saw the bad and the downright ugly, in the same screening.
In barely 50 minutes that crystallised the ragged campaigns of the two teams, we saw echoes of that Klopp masterclass against Real, back in 2013, when his Dortmund team destroyed them 4-1 thanks to a tactical masterclass.
After 25 minutes of breathless entertainment it could so easily have been the same score to the home side, their flowing, electric football - especially down the right side - should have put them four up…deserved to give them that same lead.
It was as audacious as it was awesome, the Liverpool of old (and by old, we mean just a few short months ago), tearing at their shellshocked opponents with the ferocity of the starving.
Yet Madrid really do seem to be Klopp’s Achilles’ heel. He was reverential towards them before the game, speaking of their refusal to panic…and they certainly didn’t do that, even in the face of a true Anfield storm.
That cyclone blew itself out all too quickly, as the reality of the manager’s record against the Spanish giants bit hard. He has beaten them only three times in 11 attempts now, and never with Liverpool.
You have to wonder why, given that amazing blueprint in his first encounter with them 10 years ago. The same frenzied fight worked here, majestically, too, until the Reds defence remembered their distinctly mortal efforts this season.
They collapsed like an arch of drunken acrobats. From 2-0, it was 2-5 in just 46 mad minutes, and each goal contained a shambolic display of defending. Alisson’s error was the pick, but Militao’s header from a free kick just after the break was perhaps the most embarrassing, given the total failure of organisation.
Klopp’s nemesis may just have prodded him into a total rebuild at Liverpool now, with their hopes of a trophy as shattered as their confidence and belief. It is one of the most startling declines in Anfield memory.
