Liverpool are big favorites to advance past Roma to the Champions League final, regardless of the two late goals they conceded in the first leg.
For the third time in as many knockout rounds, Liverpool enter a Champions League second leg with a big first-leg lead to defend, this time against Roma in the semifinals. As the Reds are finding out, however, not all big first-leg leads are created equal, and not only because some are literally (or mathematically) bigger than others.
If their 5-0 win against Porto in the first leg of their round of 16 tie left them with a definitive advantage heading into the second leg at Anfield, and their 3-0 win against Manchester City in the first leg of their quarterfinal tie left them with a precarious one heading into the second leg at the Etihad, how do we characterize their 5-2 lead heading into the second leg in Rome?
Liverpool dismantled Roma at Anfield last week. For 70 minutes, they beat them about as thoroughly as it’s possible to beat another team, at this or any other level, and yet those two goals at the end … those two goals. They changed something, certainly, but what, exactly? For they have felt at times over the past week like more than two goals.
More than two goals because Jurgen Klopp’s team, despite their best efforts, still haven’t quite eliminated the doubt that has long surrounded their defense, the uncertainty, the lack of control, that still overcomes this side in their worst moments. They have it in them, seems to be the feeling, they have it in them. Whatever that means, whatever “it” is.
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More than two goals because Roma have been here before, against Barcelona no less, in the very last round of the competition, when they scored three goals without reply to overturn a 4-1 deficit and advance on away goals. And if Barcelona, who apparently also have it in them, can throw away a three-goal lead, why should Liverpool be any different?
More than two goals because on Monday the news broke that Liverpool’s assistant manager, Zeljko Buvac, the man Klopp calls “the brain,” would be taking a leave of absence through the end of the season, for reasons that were described by the club as “personal,” as if every decision made by everyone everywhere isn’t also “personal.”
Perhaps above all more than two goals because if they weren’t we’d be confronted with the exceedingly bland prospect of a meaningless Champions League semifinal second leg, a game that pits the most lethal counter-attacking side in Europe against opponents who have proven themselves inept at defending that very counter-attack and who also need to score three goals.
That doesn’t mean Liverpool are going to go through (they have it in them, after all), but it does mean if they don’t go through it will be because they have done something remarkably bad and dumb on the pitch in the second leg. Whatever it is, it won’t be because of those two goals they conceded at Anfield, which may have been more than two, but are certainly still less than five.