Liverpool will play their third Champions League final in five seasons after overcoming Villarreal in the semi-final this week.
The Reds claimed a 3-2 victory over the La Liga outfit in the second leg of their semi-final, to book a place in the final in Paris later this month. They will face one of either Real Madrid or Manchester City, who meet for their second leg decider this evening at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Jurgen Klopp’s side initially trailed 2-0 thanks to early goals from Boulaye Dia and Francis Cuquelin. But Liverpool responded in the second half, with goals from Fabinho, Luis Diaz and Sadio Mane seeing the visitors over the line.
Plenty of national media outlets were in attendance to watch Liverpool beat Villarreal. Here is a selection of what they had to say.
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Ian Hawkey, via The Times
“‘It can be done!’ chanted the home fans, which in the unusual case of Villarreal means almost all of the citizens of the city. Some even sounded as though they believed it could be done. By half-time of an unexpectedly suspenseful contest, the improbable comeback really did look like it might be on.
“In a generation’s time, they may be weaving scarves about the dreamy 20 minutes when the upstarts had the scent of a European Cup final. Last night there were fans wearing scarves that remembered “The Spirit of 2006”. That was the one and only other time this happened to provincial Villarreal, when they reached the last four of the Champions League and were a saved penalty away from going further. Here, the brutal view would be that they were a cool, calm goalkeeper away from at least taking Liverpool into extra time.
“Geronimo Rulli had an unhappy second half, albeit against a Liverpool side who became far more recognisably Europe’s form team having been subdued and startled for 45 minutes by the transformation of the team they dominated at Anfield. There, Villarreal had not mustered a shot on target. Here, on a soaked pitch, they corrected that within three minutes of kick-off and it put them back in the tie.
“It was not a beautiful goal, the cross for Boulaye Dia put his way amid great sprays of rainwater. It was certainly the most significant of the mere seven goals Dia, inset, a striker, has scored for the club. Some context here: the Senegalese is far from first choice up front. He is way, way behind Sadio Mané in the hierarchy of their national team.
“Gerard Moreno, by contrast, is the best all-round forward on Villarreal’s staff, and the distinction in how they approached the home leg to their timidness at Anfield, where Moreno was absent, injured, had much to do with his aggression, his capacity to hold the ball up. When Moreno began to move uncomfortably, muscles tightening, towards the end of the opening half, supporters feared their talisman might have already made his key contributions.
“By then, the aggregate scoreline was level, and Liverpool were trailing by two goals, something that has happened to them for only a handful of minutes this season. But Villarreal made all sorts of Liverpool standards slip: Thiago Alcântara was a discreet presence. Goals from crosses were conceded by a defence including Ibrahima Konaté, although the faults for Francis Coquelin’s headed goal were most conspicuously with the full backs, Andy Robertson and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
“Premier League authority returned, as it tends to with English football’s leading pair of clubs, the Liverpool recovery aided by Rulli’s errors. So Villarreal exit, having made a historic impact on this edition of the Champions League. The danger is that it becomes a distant memory, like 2006.”
David Hytner, via The Guardian
“For Liverpool, a 10th European Cup final appearance beckons and a shot at winning the tournament for the seventh time. It was a night when their class told, specifically the control and composure that has seen them sweep all before them since the turn of the year, raising the prospect of an unprecedented quadruple.
“Never in doubt? Not exactly. The first half had been an ordeal for Jürgen Klopp and his players, their first-leg advantage wiped out as Villarreal ran riot. They scored through Boulaye Dia and Francis Coquelin and the crazy thing was that the team seventh in La Liga, with little experience of these kinds of nights, could have had more.
“How Liverpool reasserted themselves after the interval, the catalyst being Klopp’s introduction of Luis Díaz on the left. The January signing was virtually unplayable, tormenting anybody in his vicinity with his speed, balance and directness. It was as if a switch had been flicked and, sadly, the lights went out for Gerónimo Rulli, the erratic Villarreal goalkeeper.
“He was at fault to varying degrees for each of the goals with which Liverpool turned the tie around, the first being the one that he and his teammates felt the most.
“It had been coming. Liverpool, unrecognisable from the first half, playing higher, more cohesively, finding the spaces and their passing patterns. But surely not when Fabinho took a pass up the inside right from Mohamed Salah and unloaded from a tight angle? Rulli had the position but, in real time, the shot seemed to go through him, and did go between his legs. Liverpool were up and running. They would not look back.”
Martin Samuel, via Mail Online
“For a team that doesn’t often win the away legs of Champions League semi-finals, Liverpool have a remarkable knack for finding a way to get through them.
“It was 1985 when Liverpool last won outside Anfield at this stage of the tournament. Mark Lawrenson scored the only goal of the game against Panathinaikos.
“Yet they have now made it to six finals in that time, including this one, even if 37 years separate the wins away.
“The scoreline makes it look easy yet, for close to an hour, it was anything but. Villarreal owned the first-half and levelled the tie, 2-2 on aggregate. Liverpool got there in the end, though.
“Ripped the heart out of Villarreal with three second-half goals across 12 minutes. By the end they were down to ten men and utterly dispirited, Etienne Capoue dismissed for a second bookable offence, having bundled down substitute Curtis Jones.
“Yet Villarreal had their moments. For much of the night the locals dared to dream, and they appreciated their teams’ efforts even in defeat. Si! Se pueze! was the mood of the night, which translates as ‘Yes, we can’ and for a while Villarreal damn well did.”
Paul Gorst, via Liverpool Echo
“In a season where Liverpool are threatening to re-write English football's history book, it was perhaps inevitable they would revisit an old chapter in the Champions League.
“Previous semi-finals under Jurgen Klopp have been kissed by chaos; a case study in how to put your supporters through the broadest spectrum of emotions. And this was exactly the same. For 75 minutes, at least.
“A 7-6 aggregate win over Roma was needed to see the Reds reach their first final in this competition for 11 years in 2018. The following year just happened to require one of the most iconic performances in club history to turn around a 3-0 first-leg deficit to Barcelona too.
“And Liverpool's third appearance in the most glamorous club competition in football under Klopp was achieved through that same the white-knuckle ride that is apparently needed to take them there.
“After looking more than comfortable after a 2-0 win at Anfield last week, the worst 45 minutes of the season to date had an error-strewn Reds reeling and rocking at the break. A second-half resurgence was needed to see off this spirited Villarreal.
“But while this was in-keeping, in so many ways, with Klopp's previous semi-finals, it was very much the breaking of new ground too as they became the first Liverpool team to win an away tie of a European Cup semi-final since 1985.
“Such were the conditions in Villarreal on Tuesday, there were murmurings about a potential postponement as fears of a waterlogged pitch were raised. And as the rain continued to batter a sodden and soaked La Ceramica throughout the day, Klopp might have wondered whether fate was attempting to poetically intervene. But even in the near aquatic conditions, Liverpool ensured the Yellow Submarine did eventually sink.”
