Raining goals at Anfield as Reds stroll into last 8 of the Europa League
Liverpool 6 Sparta Prague 1, 14th March 2024.
LIVERPOOL 6 (Núñez 7, Clark 8, Salah 10, Gakpo 14 and 55, Szoboszlai 48)
SPARTA PRAGUE 1 (Birmančević 42)
Liverpool win 11–2 on aggregate
Following last week’s canter to a 5–1 1st leg victory in Prague, this last 16 tie of the UEFA Europa League was all but over even before a ball was kicked this evening in front a sell-out Anfield crowd. 4 goals in 14 frantic minutes dispelled any hopes of a miraculous comeback for the leaders of the Czech Republic’s premier football league and they played a large part in their own downfall as well as playing into the Reds eager hands in the process. Whilst the Sparta fans continued in the same brilliant and noisy fashion of Anfield’s previous visitors this season Union Saint-Gilloise, Toulouse and LASK, their team rather crumbled in the face of Liverpool’s relentless forward press that saw Mo Salah hunt down and chase for the ball immediately from the re-start after Darwin Núñez opened the scoring on 7 minutes, presenting an immediate second goal and first ever Reds goal for the mightily impressive Bobby Clark. The 19 year old returned the favour for the “Egyptian King” and 12 years his senior just 2 minutes later and 4 minutes later still, a sublime sweeping move started by Wataru Endō flowed via Salah and Núñez to the feet of Cody Gakpo, and the Reds were 4–0 up, 9–1 ahead on aggregate, and tonight’s game hadn’t even reached the 15 minute mark.
Whilst ex Liverpool Red Steve McManaman joked on TV co-commentary that it was 4–0 and could easily escalate to 44–0, Sparta, roared on by their partisan fans who never stopped singing and cheering them on regardless of the score line, inched their way into a game and two-legged cup-tie already long since over and following Qazim Laci volleying from long range on 22 minutes and Jan Kuchta screwing a good chance badly wide on 33 minutes, they scored a goal their improving performance deserved just before the half-time break through the tenacity and nagging persistence of Veljko Birmančević.
4–1 at half-time became 6–1 inside 10 second half minutes and a deserved, albeit deflected goal for Dominik Szoboszlai and a second delicious effort from Cody Gakpo who then tried every which way to get his hands on the match ball for a European hat-trick under the Anfield floodlights. He fluffed his best chance on 68 minutes when one-on-one with Sparta goalkeeper Peter Vindahl Jensen before the tall Danish shot-stopper denied Gakpo with a smart near post save on 77 minutes and then, with time running out and just 1 minute left of normal time, Gakpo scored that hat-trick sealing goal only to be denied by a linesman’s flag for offside.
"Chasing the Impossible and a Sword of Damocles" - Available via Amazon
As you would expect from such a comprehensive aggregate score line there are positives galore, the easy ones being the continued form and goals scored by Darwin Núñez (though yet again he missed an easier chance than he scored!), a goal from the ever impressive Bobby Clark (and boy do I LOVE seeing him crunching into tackles akin to his father back in a long ago footballing past!), two goals for Cody Gakpo, a goal and 90 minutes for the Egyptian King, a goal and 90 minutes too for a similarly returning from injury Dominik Szoboszlai, Andy Robertson proudly captained the team for an hour and Jarell Quansah staked his claim yet again to a starting XI spot next to Virgil van Dijk in the centre of defence. Positives all round.
Tomorrow sees the draw for the Quarter-Finals and 7 possible opponents including England’s West Ham United (and boy do Liverpool fans enjoy a trip to the nation’s capital for a European game!) as well as old historical European foes AC Milan as well as Atalanta of Italy, Benfica of Portugal (and memories of so many past games with the team from the Estádio da Luz) and Marseilles for the first time in this competition for two decades since the Reds crashed out at this same Quarter-Final stage in 2004. The two most intriguing opponents are of course AS Roma and the 4th round battle in this competition I was lucky enough to see live both in Rome and on a chaotic night in Liverpool in the treble winning season of 2001 and of course Bayer Leverkusen managed by a certain Xabi Alonso. The ex Liverpool Red is hotly tipped to be Jürgen Klopp’s successor at Anfield this Summer and so destiny dictates it must be the German team under the guidance of the Spanish midfield maestro.
Time will tell.
It always does.
Although in the Champions League in the 2001/2002 season, I still haven’t forgiven Bayer Leverkusen for breaking my heart on 9th April 2002 when, with 6 minutes to go, I and thousands of Liverpool fans in the “Away” end of the Bay Arena were singing our heroes into the Semi-Finals, Brazilian defender Lúcio strode forward from nowhere to smash a winning goal and dash all of our European dreams.
Will revenge be in the air as well as a meeting with the new Reds manager come mid-April?
I’m off to lie down. That Lúcio goal still haunts me!
A final word from The Boss
“I said, I don’t expect us to lose 5–0 and you get knocked out but it’s a sold-out stadium, everything is prepared for a really good football game. We decide if we get through somehow or if we play a really good game, and there are so many reasons why we should try to play a really good game. And then the boys started the game incredibly well. We were really, really after them, at them — however you want to call it — and scored wonderful goals. 4–0 after 14 minutes is really strange, and from that moment on it became a strange game because how can you now stay greedy and these kind of things?”
“But still, good game, entertaining. Obviously we all experienced different atmospheres at Anfield but I’m really happy for all of us, crowd included, that this was not as nerve-wracking as it usually is. Everybody can go home with a normal heart rate and that’s how it should be from time to time. It will not stay like this! Sunday already will be a different game and now we have three days to try to make sure we’re ready for that”.
“Bobby Clark, it’s really nice to see the boys develop and flourish, to be honest. That was a top performance of Bobby. A real performance. Goal yes. But he set up whichever goal with winning the ball back up high, really high pressing situation — top, top, top. And then controlling a football game, with all the excitement inside that he definitely still has, is fantastic”.
Thanks for reading. I pen my thoughts on every Liverpool game with well over 180 articles past and present filling my archives here. Alternatively, here are my three most recently published articles on the team I adore:
"Honours even in the “chaos” of Anfield"
"All I Want For Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit"
"The chaos magic of Darwin Núñez strikes again!"