Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 1 Real Madrid 0 in the 2025-2026 Champions League at Anfield…
THE BEST NIGHT is always this:
A great game of football that Liverpool deservedly win. With a spoonful of needle. A soupçon of fuck the fuck off.
That’s it. That’s all I ever want. I love nights where football and Liverpool are the winner.
There remains greybearded grumbling about the way this competition has changed its early rounds. But the game is to be relished and enjoyed and something about this stage, this opponent, this platform is suddenly the most enjoyable.
Liverpool enjoyed it too. They enjoyed all their work. They enjoyed winning their battles, defending for their lives. They enjoyed ceding territory because they were never truly ceding control. They enjoyed getting their shape and backing one another up. They enjoyed all the things that help a football team get through hard moments.
And you loved them for it.
You loved Conor Bradley making it crystal clear to Vinicius Jr that if he was getting anything out of the night he was going to have to be a ten out of ten and Vinicius crumbled under that intensity. His 7 became a 6, became a 5, became a joke. He drooped under close examination until all there was left was Bradley proud and resplendent.
You loved Andy Robertson taking control of an entire flank – leaping between Eduardo Camavinga and Federico Valverde at will, his spacing perfect, his brain ticking and his play in possession irresistible.
You loved Dominik Szoboszlai both in and out of possession. His talking, constant. He has opinions all the while about his teammates and he lets them know. You loved watching a leader take another step into his leadership and you loved watching him both cover and own every blade of grass.
Alexis Mac Allister is back to being himself. It isn’t about the goal. The goal is the garnish. The goal is the thing he gives you that Gini Wijnaldum used to give you, but the performance is all and it comes when on the pitch with Florian Wirtz.
Or rather Wirtz gives you what he does while on the pitch with Mac Allister and Mo Salah. There were a lot of words written and spoken after Saturday and through the season that a good performance from all three at once would be impossible. Tonight belies that. Wirtz has an existence on the left-hand side but not dissimilar to Jude Bellingham or Eduardo Camavinga, he vacates it constantly to find the pockets. That Wirtz is more influential than both is critical to Liverpool winning.
The movement is marvellous. Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike leave their Real Madrid markers spinning and while Álvaro Carreras is demonstrably marvellous the most he can manage against Mo Salah is a score draw. Salah ends the match much the stronger and one way or another he has hard lines not to supply Liverpool’s second.
But The Reds don’t need it. One is enough and Madrid are kept at arms length. The manager is judicious in the use of his options from the bench and both Cody Gakpo and Curtis Jones offer something.
These are the lads who have shown they will dig deep and manage themselves back against the wall. Make no mistake it would have been easy for many a football team, many a Liverpool team to have felt sorry for itself, felt hard lines tonight and sulked. Instead Liverpool saw every potential drop as an opportunity to bounce. They never ever felt sorry for themselves. They redoubled their efforts. For us, for one another.
The Champions of England do their best work when they are humble, when they cherish every single forward step and guard them with their lives. They have made this group stage more straightforward for themselves but more than that made it clear that they are on the march.
I love being on the march. I love cherishing and relishing and anticipating the days into Manchester City. I love looking at the run after the international break and seeing the possibilities. A potentially magnificent winter opens up.
Steve Graves once said that his favourite player was the eleven who play for Liverpool. Today is the quintessence of that. One to eleven, they did for me.
I’d follow all of them to the very jaws of hell. Because they’d do the same for each other. They’d do the same for you.
It’s a great game. It’s a great night. The party is not over. The party never will be as long as we all work for each other, as long as we all take a share of the rewards.
The best night always makes you think of more best nights to come.
Another, another, another crazy win. Another. Another. Another. Let them never, ever stop.
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