Liverpool 2-5 Real Madrid: Karim Benzema and Vinicius Jr both score twice in breathtaking comeback

On the eve of their arrival in England this week, Real Madrid’s young France midfielder Eduardo Camavinga talked about the spirit that infuses the champions of Europe.

He talked about how La Remontada, or the comeback, is part of Real Madrid lore. ‘People think Madrid are dead,’ Camavinga said, ‘but Madrid are never, never dead.’

He was talking partly about last season when Carlo Ancelotti’s side conjured a series of epic recoveries on their way to the final against Liverpool. Two goals down with half an hour to go against PSG in the round of 16, they were 10 minutes away from elimination against Chelsea in the last eight too. They were two behind against Manchester City in the semi-final after 89 minutes and won.

On Tuesday night at Anfield, Liverpool started so brightly, so irresistibly and so fiercely that when they went two goals up inside 14 minutes, it felt impossible Madrid could do it again, even if experience and the warning of Camavinga cautioned against premature celebration. You never think a comeback is going to happen to you, though. Not when your season finally appears to be coming to life.

Liverpool were magnificent in those opening 20 minutes. It was as if the travails of the rest of this season had never happened. It was as if conceding three goals to Brentford, Brighton and Wolves since the turn of the year had never happened. They were a team reborn. Their new signings Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo were superb. Madrid looked hopeless. Nunez scored a brilliantly bold opener and hapless mistake by Thibaut Courtois gifted Mo Salah a second.

That goal took him past Steven Gerrard as the club’s all-time leading goalscorer in Europe with 42 strikes and it felt in those heady moments as if this was going to be one of the great Anfield nights. Thoughts of that quarter final against Saint-Etienne in 1977, the ‘ghost goal’ against Chelsea in 2005 and that magical evening against Barcelona in 2019 came flooding back.

We should have listened to Camavinga. Madrid are never, never dead. In fact, this comeback was relatively routine compared to some of last season’s. 

Vinicius Jr, who had scored the winner in the final last season, tormented Liverpool down their right side and scored twice, the second after a dreadful mistake by Alisson. After the break, Madrid were simply in a different class.   

Liverpool may be in recovery but they are a long way from being back to their best. It ended in a 5-2 humbling. The idea Jurgen Klopp’s side might stage a recovery of their own in the second leg at the Estadio Bernabeu in a fortnight feels like a forlorn hope.

Liverpool went into the match with scores to settle with their visitors. Two scores in particular. They played Madrid in the 2018 Champions League final in Kiev and lost 3-1 after errors from Loris Karius and a stunning overhead kick from Gareth Bale. And last season, they fell to defeat to Carlo Ancelotti’s side in the final again when Vinicius Jr got the winner in Liverpool’s 1-0 loss at the Stade de France.

They have lost five and drawn one of their last six matches against the Spanish giants but a bad taste lingers from last year’s final, not because of events on the field, where Liverpool came up against Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois playing the game of his life. The feeling of resentment stems from the treatment of Liverpool’s fans at the hands of UEFA and the French authorities on an evening that could quite easily have turned to tragedy.

When kick-off in Paris was delayed for 36 minutes because of inept, dangerous and provocative policing and organisation, the stadium scoreboard claimed falsely it was because of late-arriving Liverpool supporters. In the aftermath, as French authorities tried to hide their incompetence, old tropes about ‘ticketless Liverpool fans’ were shamelessly revived. Finally, a week ago, a report by their own investigators found Uefa was to blame. Not that it mollified Liverpool’s fans. ‘**** UEFA,’ they sang over and over again on Tuesday night.

So there is plenty of history between two of the four most successful teams in Europe’s premier club competition and Liverpool made a bit more when Klopp named Stefan Bajcetic in his first eleven, making him the youngest player ever to start in a European Cup knockout stage game, ahead of other trailblazers like Harvey Elliott, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ian Rush and Tommy Smith. Bajcetic, as Mo Salah pointed out last week, has been Liverpool’s best player in recent weeks.

Liverpool started like furies. They tore into Madrid from the opening whistle. When Andrew Robertson dispossessed Luka Modric, Jordan Henderson celebrated as if Liverpool had just scored. After four minutes, they did score. Henderson spread the ball wide to the right to Salah and his cross into the box was met by an extravagant flick from Nunez which wrong-footed Courtois and nestled in the back of the net.

The smell of cordite filled the air, either from a firework or the heat of Liverpool’s ignition. Ten minutes later, they were nearly two ahead. Cody Gakpo, a player suddenly bursting with confidence, took the ball brilliantly on the half-turn and shrugged off the attention of Eduardo Camavinga before moving the ball to Salah. Salah ran at the Madrid defence, jinked through them and poked a shot just wide.

Two minutes after that, Liverpool did double their lead. 

Under pressure from Gakpo, Dani Carvajal hit a long, high backpass to Courtois. Courtois took it down on his chest but as Salah closed him down, the Madrid goalkeeper took his eye off the ball and it bounced off his knee and in to the path of the Egypt striker who slotted it back past him into the net to claim the record.

Midway through the half, Madrid finally got a foothold in the game. Vinicius Jr and Benzema exchanged passes amid a crowd of players on the edge of the Liverpool box and Vinicius Jr found enough space to arrow a fierce shot across Alisson and into the far corner of the net. Anfield fell quiet.

The match was helter-skelter. Two more minutes passed and Liverpool came desperately close to adding a third. 

Alexander-Arnold picked out a brilliant run from Henderson and when he cut it back from the goal line, mayhem ensued in the Madrid box. Salah tried to backheel it into the net and when it broke loose, Nunez attempted to smash it over the line only for Carvajal to come to his team’s rescue with a block tackle on the line.

Alisson produced a stunning diving save to keep out another stinging effort from Vincius Jr but then 10 minutes before half-time, the Liverpool goalkeeper handed the visitors an equaliser. 

The Liverpool fans had been booing Courtois mercilessly every time the ball had been played back to him but when Joe Gomez played the ball back to Alisson, Alisson tried to pass it to safety and the ball cannoned off the right shin of Vinicius Jr and bounced high in to the net.

The first half drama was not over. As the clock moved into added time, Madrid launched a lightning counter-attack, Vinicius Jr escaped down the left and slid a ball across the face of the six-yard box. Rodrygo closed in on it at the back post for a tap-in but Robertson slid in to clip the ball away from him in the nick of time.

The second half started like the first. With no time to take a breath. Two minutes into it, Madrid were ahead. Gomez was adjudged to have fouled Vinicius Jr just outside the box on the Liverpool goalline. Modric drilled the ball into the area, Eder Militao peeled away from his marker and steered a bullet header past Alisson from point-blank range.

Soon, Madrid were further ahead. Madrid worked the ball into the box cleverly from a corner, Benzema and Vinicius Jr exchanged passes and when Benzema slid a weak left-foot shot goalwards, Alisson had it covered comfortably until it took a cruel deflection off Gomez and bounced apologetically in to the net.

Midway through the half, Benzema added a fifth. One loose touch from Fabinho in midfield was all it took. Modric was on it in a flash and stole it away. He played the ball to Vinicius Jr, who played inside to Benzema. Benzema feinted to shoot and sat Alisson down on the turf, then he took it past him and stroked a left-foot shot around the defenders massing on the line.