AT the start of the season, Rafael Benitez would have sat back in his office at Melwood and envisaged his team’s European adventure ending in Madrid.
Now the Liverpool manager faces the task of ensuring the complete opposite after hopes of salvaging silverware from a tortuous campaign were left teetering precariously in the balance.
A slender defeat to Atletico Madrid was the ultimate outcome after a circuitous 24-hour, 1,200-mile journey to the Spanish capital for their Europa League semi-final first leg.
Of course, any chance of appearing in the Champions League final across the city in the Bernabeu have long since disappeared, with the Anfield outfit unlikely to even be in the competition next season.
The Europa League has instead assumed priority. Benitez stated before last night’s game that the recent Anfield comebacks against Lille and Benfica would have been praying on the minds of Atletico.
It didn’t show. And almost inevitably, it was former Manchester United striker Diego Forlan whose ninth-minute strike proved the difference between the sides.
Liverpool must now produce a third successive recovery on their own turf next Thursday, but will at least will be heartened by the fact the previous three times they lost a first leg away in a European semi-final, they went on to reach the final.
For that to happen, Benitez’s men will have to do significantly better than they showed here. Despite players lining up to state they couldn’t use their lengthy journey to Madrid as an excuse for any failure, how else to explain such a lacklustre performance with so much at stake?
The danger had been evident in the warm-up when Javier Mascherano pulled up clutching his hamstring. And while the Mascherano was fit enough to last the full 90 minutes, it was clear all that time on planes, trains and automobiles had an adverse effect.
Indeed, the sparsely-populated away section illustrated how the ash cloud had also affected the travel arrangements of many Liverpool fans who abandoned hope of getting to the game in time altogether.
Those that made the trip were probably wondering why they bothered. Atletico have shipped 52 goals in 33 La Liga games this campaign but, sorely missing their former Atletico striker Fernando Torres, Liverpool couldn’t manage one.
That said, they could rightly point to a Yossi Benayoun strike that was wrongly chalked off for offside. But Atletico goalkeeper David de Gea didn’t have a save of note to make, in contrast to fine saves by Pepe Reina that ensured Liverpool have only a one-goal deficit to overcome.
