# Time running out for Liverpool to make themselves serial winners

It’s the 94th minute at Estádio da Luz in October. Benfica are winning 4-0 and Atlético Madrid are in utter disarray. Zeki Amdouni runs the ball into an entirely unpatrolled Atlético area, gets a free shot from 14 yards and misses a glorious chance to make it 5-0. Nobody cares. Least of all Liverpool, even though this miss will in effect end up, five months later, knocking them out of the .

Of course, we’re in the realm of the absurd here, although when it comes to the new Champions League format this is a system with margins exactly, and absurdly, this fine. By virtue of this one goal not scored – and of course you could pick out many others – Benfica end up finishing 16th in the 36-team group phase rather than 15th: a position from which they, rather than , would probably have ended up facing Liverpool in the last 16.

Of course there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The talk now will be of emotional recovery. Newcastle await at Wembley this weekend and yet, if this group of players has learned anything from the relentless campaigns of previous seasons, it is the art of dusting themselves down and picking themselves up for the next challenge. In truth, the real question is where Slot’s squad stand physically after a long, gruelling season and 210 minutes of high-intensity European football. “There’s a lot of tired legs in there,” Andrew Robertson said.

And of course there are potential implications here that go beyond this week, beyond even this season. If the  was the culmination of a project, then  against Atlético Madrid in that season’s Champions League – a game naturally overshadowed by the pandemic it helped to spread – also offered a slightly unflattering portrait of what was coming around the corner.

Naturally there were still a few bones of resentment as Liverpool made their exit on Tuesday, a certain bafflement at a format that allows a club to top the group table and still get drawn against one of the best teams in the world.  that Liverpool had been “so, so unlucky”. Luis Enrique’s verdict was: “Both teams deserved to go through.” And the way Uefa is going, maybe one day soon they both will.

For all this, there was also a certain magnanimity there, a recognition that Paris had been the superior team over the two legs. “The best game of football I was ever involved in,” Slot said. And of course magnanimity is much easier to come by when you are 15 points clear in the Premier League and in a cup final at the weekend. All the same, given the standard and given the stakes, it’s worth asking: just how much did this defeat mean? In an age where everything must be ranked and contextualised and GOATed, how does this failure affect the way a great  team will be remembered?

There will be some for whom this in itself is the wrong question: a forlorn attempt to devalue Liverpool’s season by measuring it against an unattainable standard, the idea that winning a 20th championship and drawing level with Manchester United is somehow insufficiently excellent. Let them eat league title!

And yet you only had to study the body language of Liverpool’s players afterwards to know that this was no ordinary defeat, no ordinary setback. Mohamed Salah, a player who may well be on his way out of Anfield this summer, was utterly inconsolable. So too Darwin Núñez, whose missed penalty was the turning point of the shootout. Strictly speaking, Liverpool didn’t _need_ to win the Champions League this season. But you could see, in the bruised aftermath, just how good a chance they had.



Virgil van Dijk’s contract runs out this summer so he may have played his last European game for Liverpool. Photograph: Jake Kirkman/Every Second Media/Shutterstock
```