Liverpool player ratings: 4-3 (5-4) Dortmund
By Ethan Lowe
Liverpool produce a breathtaking comeback against one of the strongest teams in Europe, earning a place in the Europa League semi-finals
This entire match looked to be a lesson on how hope kills Liverpool fans, with the game looking impossible to win on several occasions.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored within the first ten minutes, meaning Liverpool needed to score three without reply to progress to the next round. Most fans remained hopefully at this point, and were ecstatic when Divock Origi reduced the deficit down to two.
It’s when Marco Reus reset the gap to three that the fans (sadly including myself) started to lose that hope. We were 57 minutes in, needing three goals against a quality side. It would have surely taken a miracle and a whole ton of class to pull this one back – and that’s just what we saw.
First, the magician Philippe Coutinho scored to again leave Liverpool chasing two goals, before Mamadou Sakho gave Liverpool 13 minutes to chase the final goal.
Liverpool had been chasing three goals twice during this match, and now needed only one to cancel out the advantage Borussia Dortmund had thanks to away goals.
A clever free kick to Daniel Sturridge, with a cheeky pass to James Milner, saw a cross pinged to the far post. In what seemed like slow motion, Dejan Lovren headed home the winning goal and the team went crazy.
This game has made me a firm believe. I thought I was before, but I lost faith in my side when Reus scored, and I swear I’ll never let that happen again.
Jurgen Klopp turned this horror show into one of the greatest comebacks in Europa League history, and every Liverpool player should be proud of what they achieved. There’s plenty negatives, but many can be excused by the response the team made.
This is a very difficult game to rate, because it was as poor as it was brilliant, but here goes nothing.
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