Jurgen Klopp has told his Liverpool players to “fail in a most-beautiful way” if they cannot complete their mission impossible tonight.
Liverpool trail Atalanta 3-0 from last week’s horror show at Anfield and the Reds have never won a European tie after losing the first leg at home. Liverpool famously beat Barcelona 4-0 at Anfield in the Champions League semi-final in May 2019 after losing 3-0 and Klopp will send his players out tonight with the same words.
“I remember that I said, if we fail, then let’s fail in a most-beautiful way and that’s how I see it again,” said the Liverpool boss. “We want to win the game and if we want to win the game, we had better play good. If we play good, then we will have a chance to win it and we will see.
“I said after the game, everybody in the stadium at Liverpool, the Liverpool supporters and Atalanta supporters thought that is it. Now a week later, I don’t think everyone thinks it’s already decided.
"We’re here and we can be good. We can be not so good as well so let’s see what we put on the pitch tomorrow.”
Klopp talked down the similarities with Barcelona five years ago and crucially Liverpool are away. “What’s similar?” he said. “The result definitely. The performance not really. We played at Barcelona and they were exceptional, but we lost 3-0 and no-one knew how.
“We lost at home and now we’re away so that’s a massive difference. It’s not about comparing.” Liverpool have a glimmer of hope and they won 5-0 here on their last visit in November 2020 when Diogo Jota bagged a hat-trick in the behind-closed-doors Champions League game.
Atalanta are not one of Europe’s heavyweights and they are sixth in Serie A, having won just three of their last 11 games. Alisson played in that incredible win over Barcelona, but the Brazil goalkeeper insists there are “more differences than similarities” with that mad night.
He was at pains to play down comparisons with Barcelona and is more concerned that Liverpool get back to keeping clean sheets after registering just three in their last 19 games. “They’re not so much apart from the result,” he said. “We’re playing the second leg away. That night was home. Different players, different competition.
“There are more differences than similarities. It’s a completely different situation and we have to deal with it. We did great things in the past and great things in the history of football. Teams have overcome bad results and turned it around to qualify for the next round.
“We have to believe in ourselves. We come here with the goal to improve our performance, try and play better and try to avoid mistakes. Losing 3-0 at home is something we cannot accept as Liverpool players. We have to improve our performances.
“We have to go back to keeping clean sheets and scoring the clear chances we have in front of goal. I trust my strikers and defenders. If we do that as a team, we can go back to winning games.”
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