Arne Slot has inherited the padel court that Jürgen Klopp had built on the grounds of Liverpool’s sports city, in Kirkby. Plump and cordial as a Shrek, The 46-year-old Dutchman shyly reproduces the same hobbies of his predecessor. He and the club’s directors know perfectly well that Klopp’s charisma, overwhelming character, authority and paternal empathy are unmatched. The Dutch coach takes on the impossible mission of filling the void left by a legend and has been advised to start with few changes and behave with the utmost caution when addressing the players. According to club sources, he has been training them for four months and still has not raised his voice to them. The day you do it, if it turns out to be inopportune, it can generate a chain reaction of discredit. Liverpool employees remain expectant about the coach’s behavior in the week they consider the most important of the first half of the season. Not because they play against Manchester City next Sunday in the league—first against second in the Premier. Above all, because Real Madrid visits them this Wednesday in the Champions League and it is time, they insist, to settle scores. A victory can instill the optimism needed to begin the new era.
“I don’t think anyone thinks about the game against City in this locker room,” said Slot, yesterday at the conference; “especially here at Anfield. Because beating Madrid is something very difficult. Not just for Liverpool, for any team in Europe. Because they can beat you in very different ways. They can dominate the opponent by taking the ball away, or not. “They always find a way to move on.”
In addition to the padel court, Slot has received a debt from Klopp to settle. The obsessive idea transcends the coach, who contemplates in astonishment the mania that agitates the leaders before him. Captain Virgil van Dijk, scorer Mo Salah, general manager Michael Edwards and sporting director Richard Hughes have been saying it for days: it is not enough to beat Madrid. You have to beat it. You have to demonstrate superiority. We must generate more clear scoring opportunities. Only in this way will they be able to heal the wound that a dark streak in the Champions League against the Spanish has left in the team and the institution. Two lost finals, eight games in total, seven defeats and a draw suffered since the double crossing in the group stage in the autumn of 2014. The Klopp dynasty sullied by a sequence that Liverpool remember as plagued by incredibly unfortunate incidents, such as the grotesque Loris Karius’s performance in the 2018 kyiv final, the most famous succession of mistakes in memory by a goalkeeper.
Madrid represents the darkest and most dramatic part of Liverpool’s recent history. Slot is aware of this. All you have to do is look around and behave with extreme caution. His only credentials are a Dutch championship won with Feyenoord in 2023, the support of Virgil van Dijk, his countryman and his right arm on the field, and a golden landing. The 16 victories achieved by Liverpool in the first 18 Slot games constitute the best record in the history of debuts for the club’s coaches. The leadership of the Premier with eight points ahead of City is the most obvious consequence.
“Slot has brought a breath of fresh air,” said Robertson, the left back. “And the results help because they have given us confidence.”
“The merit is not mine, it belongs to the players,” Slot was quick to say, aware of how dangerous it is to boast in front of a locker room inhabited by world champions, or Champions League champions, who watch over you with zeal. “If we are the team with the fewest goals scored in the Premier [8 goles recibidos] It is thanks to the collective capacity for work and giants like Virgil or Konaté.” The coach knows that he has a task ahead of him, and that above all he needs to refine the attack.
On the board, the team reproduces a scheme and mandate similar to that of Klopp: 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1 with the aim of pressing and attacking en masse. On the grass the players appear more organized, less daring, less brave than in the past. On Sunday against Southampton, last ranked in the English league, they were surprised (2-1) before coming back (2-3) in a rushed and random outcome. Liverpool resorted too much to long passes, they became predictable in the turns, and until Mac Allister and Luis Díaz did not enter in the second half the interiors did not dare to play inside. Given the inexperience of Gravenberch, a lightweight and non-aggressive midfielder, Mac Allister is the midfielder who has the most positive impact on the administration of attacks. His great partner is Díaz. Unbalanced on the wing and deep in the area, the Colombian, who has nine goals, has had some of the best individual performances in the Premier so far this season.
The last time Liverpool beat Madrid was in the spring of 2009. In the round of 16 of the Champions League. When at the Anfield club the midfield was made up of Alonso, Mascherano and Gerrard and in the Madrid midfield Gago, Sneijder and Diarra acted. The game ended 4-0 and goes so far into the past that Robertson, today a veteran, was not even a youth at the time. “We want victory,” the Scot said yesterday. “Who doesn’t want to win the most watched game of the day?”
