Heading into Liverpool’s 5-0 Champions League round of 16 rout at FC Porto, Reds Manager Jurgen Klopp said publicly that he believes his side could beat Paris Saint-Germain. While many scoffed at that notion at the time, after today’s results, he’s certainly been proven right. The Reds ran away with it, racking up so many away goals during the road leg that they have now essentially punched their ticket through to the quarterfinals.
Liverpool will be able to cruise now during the home leg.
“I saw a lot of fantastic performances tonight, a result like this is only possible if they are all spot on,” Klopp is quoted by the BBC.
“I think Robertson played an outstanding game, finally he found his crosses, I thought they were in Scotland or somewhere which was good to see. Of course Sadio is Man of the match but Roberto Firmino‘s work rate was outstanding again.”
Jurgen Klopp got goals tonight from Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah, and a hat trick from Sadio Mane at at the Estadio do Dragao on Wednesday. The return leg at Anfield is March 6, in the midst of a three matches in seven days stretch.
Klopp was asked the sublime effort tonight was “perfect.”
“You could say that of course,” the German responded. “It was very professional, very mature in the right moments, very aggressive, good defending, good counter-attacking, keeping the ball, moving them around. In this game it was possible, usually it’s not that easy.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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