Champions League semi-finals are supposed to be cagey affairs, with both sides so wary of the damage done by conceding a goal that they don't strain too hard to attack. One mistake could be fatal so better to keep things tight and hope for the best. Many teams have traditionally been inclined to play the percentages and hope to steal victory from a stifling encounter.
Jose Mourinho is perhaps the best example of this approach to knockout football. He was able to lift the Champions League with both Porto and Inter Milan by playing this way. Chances were kept to a minimum and risk was ruthlessly eradicated. His teams defended with an unrivalled zeal and reaped the rewards of doing so. His methods weren’t especially easy on the eye but they were certainly effective.
Now they seem almost outmoded. Times have changed and austerity football is no longer in vogue. As Mourinho’s Manchester United bowed out in the second round against a distinctly average Sevilla, their lack of ambition was highlighted as a major issue. Once a disciplined, defensive outlook stops delivering results, it has very little to recommend it. Mourinho was previously at the vanguard of tactical developments, but has since been left behind.
In the context of our previously engrained understanding that the route to the Champions League final should be paved with clean sheets, Liverpool's 7-6 aggregate defeat of Roma is a complete aberration. It looks almost like a score from a different sport entirely. Unable to rely on a sometimes shaky defence, Jurgen Klopp has put the emphasis on a splendidly well-oiled attack instead.
Liverpool have scored 46 goals in the Champions League this season, with 17 of those coming in just six knockout matches. Their deliriously full-throated attacking football makes for open and entertaining games where they're always confident of outpunching the opposition. The contrast to the last two times Liverpool reached the final, under Rafael Benitez, is particularly stark.
An advocate of organised, occasionally inhibited football, the Spaniard carried an unbalanced squad to two finals in three years on the basis of keeping the opposition at bay first and foremost. In their successful Champions League campaign they conceded twice against Bayer Leverkusen, once against Juventus, and shut out Chelsea completely in the semi-final.
Although Liverpool's comeback victory over AC Milan in Istanbul became an all-time classic, the matches leading up that point were stodgy in the extreme. The drama derived from the sheer paucity of chances that made each one seem far more significant in isolation. It was all about plugging gaps, not becoming too exposed, and waiting for the chance to strike. Benitez would have shuddered at the thought of how open Liverpool have been this season.
In their run to the 2004-05 final, Liverpool scored nine goals in their six knockout matches, and just one in the semi-final. Two years later it was seven, and one in the semi-final again. Both times it was enough to see them through. Tight matches were part of the prevailing culture and Benitez was one of its very best proponents.
Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona followed and for a while possession became king. This style posed a different challenge and required a different response. Fast-paced, disruptive football emerged as a result. The quality of possession rather than the quantity was what counted. Teams were able to spring forward at pace, with rapid transitions between defence and attack. The route to goal became quicker and more direct.
Klopp’s approach is almost the antithesis of how Mourinho and Benitez found success in Europe. Liverpool’s journey to the final has been an erratic and joyous one, a welcome departure from what was once established orthodoxy. He’s found a different way of balancing risk and reward, and it seems that knockout football can be fun after all.
