Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 3 Atletico 2 in the 2025-2026 Champions League…
IT ENDS IN A marvellous and necessary win. It should have been a comfortable one. It could have been Liverpool’s finest performance since February. It ought to have been a lovely night to adore them.
But it becomes a night of blood and thunder, of courage, a night of Diego Simeone getting sent off after “suffering” Anfield. Diego, pal, currently we’re suffering Anfield every week. Join the club.
They have such spirit it seems reductive to mention it, but spirit alloyed with quality takes you such a long way in anything you want to do. These are all footballers you’d gladly be in the trenches with, footballers happy to be in the trenches with each other.
A mildly concerning thought persists that maybe they enjoy the trenches a little too much. Let’s shake our head on that for now. Let it pass. Interrogate it another day.
Instead dwell on their ability to push and find a way and their ability for the way to be about sheer quality, not fortune or brute force. It is a magnificent header from the captain against a man who can argue his case as the best pure goalkeeper in Europe. It is unstoppable. It is magnetic. It is Virgil van Dijk and he is currently the footballer the world revolves around more than any other.
Pulling it back to the start, Liverpool are a flurry. Both fullbacks are leaping forward to close angles, one gets a goal and the other batters his man. The theory is this is Liverpool’s fourth toughest game of eight but you wouldn’t think it.
They are first to everything and before you check the clock Mo Salah has a goal and an assist. The assist is unlikely but the goal is the man personified. From my seat it doesn’t look clean but after the fact you see Salah has scored one of Salah’s goals. Holding off men, all shark-like movement and dead-eyed certainty. He has shown himself yet again to love the occasion.
He’s the best version of himself. Which means he is the best version of a Liverpool great. What a thing to be.
There’s a moment post goal, when Van Dijk has a second with him where this flash hits me:
These lads want to win the Champions League more than you. These lads know this is it. Knowing that helps.
Tonight is a great example of how in the ground and outside the ground so often gives you such different perspectives.
In the ground I was staggered by both goals Liverpool conceded. Outside of the ground I was stunned by how neither goal should be given.
The first Liverpool do sleepwalk into a little. The Reds had been excellent from about 35 to 43. They’d battered Atleti. Then they just lose something, some edge and our opponents have been around every block.
But seeing it back, I just can’t believe it is given. Alisson Becker’s line of sight is utterly undermined.
The second comes after the lads ought to make it three and arguably four. This is one of those games which ought to go 3-0, which ought to go 3-1 and then 4-1. This is not one of those games where Liverpool are floating. That was Newcastle. This isn’t one of those games where Liverpool are unnecessarily risky. That was Bournemouth.
This is, in isolation, one of those games where Liverpool deserve to just win and don’t deserve to have to take any medicine.
There have been three hopes:
Hope One is you look back on these five games at the end of the campaign and say “they make a tonne of sense if you just sprinkle them through the year”.
Hope Two is this is a side working out how to attack devastatingly; who are on the verge of it and say “this was hanging in before it hit”.
Hope Three is “they just win late forever.”
Today, with Alexander Isak’s debut, Hope Two feels the strongest of the hopes. The likeliest. He improves as the game wears on. He finds pockets and enjoys battles and looks like a man at home. It will take a bit of time but we have time as long as we get points.
Today we look good and play well. Today Gravenberch and Szoboszlai look like a viable, athletic force to be reckoned with. Today Florian Wirtz shows moments of both brilliance and genius and we should all be sure it will come.
Today Liverpool were Virgil van Dijk’s Liverpool. He claims points, evening and symbolism. He leaves Diego Simeone raging, us believing in all that is seen and unseen and the march being before us. We and they believe we can win this. We and they are right to.
Steps. Everything is steps. Saturday is another step. It’d be fabulous to see that one taken, the one where Liverpool don’t need a late winner, the one where the class tells. It would be brilliant for that to be the case.
But you take any win. You always did. You always will.
And tonight they were lucky it was 3-2. Another crazy win. Another brilliant Liverpool performance.
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