Season after season, time and time again, opposition managers and players often fall into the same fateful trap against Liverpool.

Whether it's boldly dismissing the Anfield atmosphere as an irrelevance that won't affect them, or underestimating the team itself, there's a consistent theme of making bold assertions which later comes back to bite.

Back in Jürgen Klopp's first season, Borussia Dortmund's manager at the time, Thomas Tuchel, stated "Anfield won't bother us" before his side surrendered a 3-1 lead to lose 4-3 and crash out in the Europa League quarter-final.

The following year, TSG Hoffenheim manager at the time, Julian Nagelsmann, claimed "I am not overly in awe of this club" before his team lost 4-2 at Anfield in the Champions League qualifier.

And the list goes on. The likes of Kevin de Bruyne, Leroy Sané, Neymar, Dries Mertens and Sokratis Papastaphopoulos are among those to have made similar comments before facing Liverpool in big games, only to all suffer the exact same result.

Now, Atletico Madrid's chairman, Enrique Cerezo, seems to have gone down a similar route after his side were paired with Liverpool in Monday's Champions League last-16 draw.

He said: "I think they are the ones who should feel vertigo. We knew that Liverpool or any other club could play us. It is not the first time we have eliminated them, we already eliminated them in the UEFA Cup. They're a great team, but we have Jan [Oblak]."

It's true, Atletico did knock Liverpool out of the UEFA Cup back in April 2010, going through on away goals after the tie finished 2-2 following Diego Forlan's extra-time goal in the second leg at Anfield.

Quite how that's in any way relevant to facing the current Liverpool vintage almost an entire decade on, though, isn't exactly obvious (the front three back then consisted of Ryan Babel, Yossi Benayoun and Dirk Kuyt).

That he chooses to single out Oblak of all the players in Atletico's squad is also quite telling, and although the Slovenian goalkeeper is world class in his own right, Liverpool's No.1 just so happens to have been recently named the best in the world.

There's also the fact that Liverpool currently happen to be the European champions (coincidentally, having won the Champions League in Atletico's Wanda Metropolitano stadium in June) as well as leading the Premier League with 16 wins and a draw from 17 matches, making them the most consistently formidable force on the continent over the course of the calendar year, while Klopp has never lost a two-legged European tie as Liverpool manager.

Now of course, none of that is in any way a guarantee of Liverpool's progression to the quarter-finals this time round, and nor should Diego Simeone's side ever be underestimated, even if their domestic form has been highly underwhelming so far this campaign.

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It'll likely be a closely contested, tactically fascinating tie between two sides of highly contrasting styles, led by two of the greatest managers of their generation.

But if history has shown anything, it's that these sort of brash assertions to play Liverpool down in public beforehand tend not to be the wisest of plans.

It's not as if Liverpool need any more added motivation to defend their crown, anyway. They'll be taking nothing for granted, but fearing no one. And certainly not feeling any kind of vertigo.