As Liverpool head to Marseille to take on the French side in the Champions League, we look back at a memorable trip to the south of France in December 2007
Fernando Torres was on the mark for Liverpool in Marseille in 2007
Fernando Torres was on the mark for Liverpool in Marseille in 2007(Image: )
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Liverpool's most famous European comebacks have been known to take place over a matter of minutes, not weeks. But in the latter months of 2007 things were were rather different.
The Reds, beaten Champions League finalists at end of the previous season when AC Milan exacted their revenge for Istanbul in Athens, were staring down the barrel of an early exit after a dismal 2-1 defeat to Besiktas, a result which had rounded off a dire first half of the group stage.
There had been a creditable 1-1 draw in Porto on the opening night, when Rafael Benitez's side had played 35 minutes with 10 men following a red card for Jermaine Pennant, but when that was followed by a 1-0 home defeat to Marseille, courtesy of a brilliant goal by the diminutive Mathieu Valbeuna, and then that defeat in the Turkish capital all had seemed lost.
Very few teams would come back from just one point in their opening three games to reach the knockout stages in the old Champions League format, and amid ongoing friction between Benitez and Reds owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett - we were weeks away from the manager's infamous "coaching and training my team" press conference following a transfer broadside from Hicks - all in the garden was not rosy.
Liverpool's response? To break a Champions League record by beating Besiktas 8-0 at Anfield as Yossi Benayoun scored a hat-trick, before three goals in front of the Kop in the final 12 minutes saw Porto swatted aside 4-1, the fourth of five wins in a row in all competitions.
That had set up a trip to Marseille where only a win would ensure qualification and a remarkable turnaround, but after a 3-1 defeat to Reading the preceding weekend, and with Benitez scheduled for a meeting with Hicks and Gillett over ongoing and heightening tensions which many felt could lead to his exit, the feelings going into the game at the imposing Stade Velodrome, where Gillett would be in attendance, were hardly overly positive ones.
"I've said 100 times that we have experience of these types of games. If you are fighting to win trophies, you are always going to be under pressure," said a defiant Benitez the night before the clash. "I'm feeling the same pressure as before any game."
Clearly acutely aware of the importance of the match, the abrasive boss had shown his ruthless streak when selecting his squad, leaving the frozen out and furious Mohamed Sissoko at home after a series of below par displays, including in the home loss to Marseille. He didn't take it well.
"I am seriously hacked off," Sissoko would tell French radio station. "The Marseille game is in France, all my family is over there and they wanted to see me play. These are difficult times for me. I have been thinking about leaving for some time now.
"It is the manager's choice to leave me out. I can respect that, but we will have talks in January. I will sit down and take stock of the situation with my agents and the manager. I can accept healthy competition for places. But I am not interested in playing just one match in five."
By January he'd be gone, but this December night was all about the here and now for Liverpool, with the headlines on the day of the contest screaming about their manager's future. A good start was going to be vital if a nervy evening was to be avoided, and what Benitez and Liverpool got was a great one.
They were 2-0 up within 11 minutes, with Steven Gerrard, an injury doubt before the game, hurtling his body into the box to earn a penalty in the opening exchanges. Goalkeeper Steve Mandanda would save his initial spot kick, but Gerrard was there again to fire in the rebound.
But if the first was scruffy, the second was sublime. Harry Kewell fed Fernando Torres on the left corner of the penalty area, and the forward, four months into his Anfield career, scythed through the close attentions of four home defenders before brilliantly steering his shot into the far corner. It was sleek stuff, made all the more attractive by Liverpool's striking, sponsorless black shirt.
Having established such a bridgehead in the game Liverpool weren't going to let it go, and two became three early in the second half when Kewell accepted a poor Mandanda kick and played in Dirk Kuyt to fire home, with substitute Ryan Babel adding a fine fourth in stoppage time to cap off what The Guardian called a 'supreme and serene' Liverpool display.
Job done, qualification secured after 16 goals in three Champions League games and Benitez further emboldened.
"I have always maintained confidence that I will be the manager of Liverpool," he would say in his usual matter of fact way at full-time. "The supporters and the players are happy. That is the key."
European comebacks tend to have that effect.