Fast News The Reds went into the match at Anfield trailing 3-0 from the first leg and deprived of injured star attacking duo Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino. Liverpool's Georginio Wijnaldum, left, celebrates scoring his side's third goal of the game during the Champions League Semi Final, second leg soccer match between Liverpool and Barcelona (AP) Liverpool produced one of the most stunning comebacks in Champions League history to beat Barcelona 4-0 and progress to the final for the second consecutive year on Tuesday as stand-in striker Divock Origi and substitute Georginio Wijnaldum both scored twice. Liverpool went into the match at Anfield trailing 3-0 from the first leg and deprived of injured star attacking duo Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino. However, Origi -- making a rare start -- and substitute Wijnaldum both netted twice as Barca for the second season in succession surrendered a three-goal first-leg lead to exit the Champions League. "With any other team I wouldn't think it was possible. They are really mentality giants," Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp said. "It is unbelievable the season we had, the games we had, the injuries we had now. "Going out there and putting in a performance like this on the pitch is unbelievable. I am really proud to be the manager of this team. "What they did tonight was really special. I will remember it forever." Liverpool will face either Dutch side Ajax or Premier League rivals Tottenham in the final on June 1 in Madrid and will likely be favourites to be crowned European champions for the sixth time. Liverpool's Mohamed Salah, Manager Jurgen Klopp, Virgil van Dijk, Assistant manager Pepijn Lijnders and James Milner celebrate after the Champions League Semi Final at Anfield, Liverpool, England on May 7, 2019. (AP) The Reds' stunning victory brought back memories of when they last lifted the trophy in 2005 when they overturned a 3-0 half-time deficit in the final against AC Milan in Istanbul. However, Klopp underlined the importance of his side writing their own history even if their bid for a first Premier League title for 29 years falls short behind Manchester City this weekend. "We believed in this chance, we didn't compare it with Istanbul or whatever," added Klopp. "We want to create our own history. We need new chapters obviously and the boys did it." Despite the despondency of losing Salah and Firmino, Klopp's men never lost faith and were accompanied by a typically raucous Anfield atmosphere for a European night. Origi would almost certainly not have started had Salah and Firmino been fit. But the 24-year-old Belgian has made a habit of scoring important goals in Liverpool's title challenge and had his first ever in the Champions League on seven minutes on the rebound after Marc-Andre ter Stegen had denied Jordan Henderson's initial effort. "We know this club is the mix of atmosphere, emotion, desire and football quality. You cut off one and it doesn't work, we know that," Klopp said. "This club has a big heart. The heart was pounding like crazy, you could hear it and feel it all over the world. I am so happy we could give the people this experience." Barca collapse again Barcelona boss Ernesto Valverdewas left to face up to the second major European embarrassment of his time in charge. The Spanish champions blew a 4-1 first-leg lead to bow out at the quarter-finals against Roma last year. "The most hurtful thing is to repeat it," said Valverde, who may struggle to hold on to his job despite guiding Barca to two La Liga titles. "When you have a collapse of this nature we will have a few horrible days ahead." His side were left to rue not taking their chances in the first half after weathering Liverpool's early burst. Lionel Messi had seemingly turned the tie in the Catalans' favour late in the first leg with a brilliant free-kick and his first effort was tipped over by Alisson Becker before the Brazilian denied his international teammate Philippe Coutinho. Liverpool were seemingly dealt another injury blow as Andy Robertson was withdrawn at half-time, but he made way for Dutch international Wijnaldum with James Milner moving to left-back. Barcelona's Lionel Messi, who scored two of the team's three goals, hugs Liverpool coach Juergen Klopp after the Champions League semifinal first leg soccer match between FC Barcelona and Liverpool at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on May 1, 2019. (AP) Wijnaldum's impact was massive. He was picked out by Trent Alexander-Arnold's low cross and drilled under Ter Stegen. And from Liverpool's next attack, Xherdan Shaqiri picked out Wijnaldum to head home at the Kop end. "Once again we showed that everything is possible in football," said Wijnaldum. "I was really angry at the manager that he put me on the bench but I had to do something to help the team when I came on." Valverde tried to restore some order as Coutinho, who cost £142 million ($186 million) when moving from Liverpool to Barcelona in January 2018, was replaced for the second time in the tie. The change briefly had an impact, but Barca were inexplicably caught cold from a quick Alexander-Arnold corner 11 minutes from time that picked out Origi completely unmarked to fire high past Ter Stegen. "A genius moment," Klopp of Alexander-Arnold's quick thinking. "I saw the ball flying in the net and had no idea who took the corner and who scored the goal." Source: TRTWorld and agencies<doc-sep>Of all the incredible nights at Anfield, where does this one count? It has to be at the very top, presumably, given who they were playing, the importance of the occasion and the overwhelming feeling, despite everything this stadium has witnessed over the years, that Liverpool have never quite managed anything this spectacular before, with the floodlights on and the European Cup as the target. That is some honour for Jürgen Klopp and his players when you think of all the occasions here that have helped to shape Liverpool’s reputation. They have won this trophy five times and now, for a second successive year, they will be going to another final with the chance to make it six. It was nothing short of extraordinary – one of the all-time Champions League comebacks and a reminder, amid all the euphoria, about the greatness of this sport, with its capacity to surprise and conjure up barely conceivable storylines. It finished with the Liverpool players, arm in arm, standing in front of the Kop to join in with the victory songs. For Barcelona, it will be remembered as one of the more harrowing ordeals of all their years in Europe’s premier club competition. Barça, you may recall, once overcame a 4-0 first-leg deficit against Paris Saint-Germain by winning 6-1 in the return fixture. They will know now what it is like to be on the receiving end of an almost implausible result. And, in fairness to the travelling supporters, they recognised greatness: long after the final whistle had sounded, with the stadium finally starting to clear and the man in charge of the music deciding it was time for some John Lennon, the Catalan fans in the far corner broke into spontaneous applause, clapping their Liverpudlian counterparts. It was some moment. The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email More fool anyone, perhaps, who had thought the occasion was beyond this team. Klopp’s heroes had begun the night with a 3-0 deficit and were without Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino from their usual frontline. They were also, lest it be forgotten, facing a collection of players, led by some chap by the name of Lionel Messi, who were trying to win their third treble in a decade and their fifth European Cup in 13 years. And, as if that was not enough, there was the added pressure that suddenly, with Manchester City back on top of the Premier League, there was the distinct possibility that a season of sustained brilliance would end with no reward. After a quick-corner routine, Divock Origi was left all alone in the Barcelona box to score a dramatic winner. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian Perhaps they used that for extra motivation. Liverpool had levelled the match 3-3 on aggregate by the 56th minute courtesy of Divock Origi’s early breakthrough and two in quick succession from the substitute Georginio Wijnaldum. All the time, there was the danger posed by Messi, Luis Suárez and Philippe Coutinho, among others. Messi alone must have had half a dozen attempts at goal and, always, there was the realisation that one goal for Barça would mean Liverpool needing five. It made for a tremendous spectacle, full of everything that makes football so absorbing, and culminating in the decisive moment, in the 79th minute, when Trent Alexander-Arnold took a quick corner and only one player was tuned in. It was Origi, again, clipping his shot past Marc-André ter Stegen for a goal Anfield will never forget. Trent Alexander-Arnold can’t contain himself after the final whistle. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian Another team might have shrunk because of what happened to them at the Camp Nou. Not Liverpool, though. Anfield always cranks up the volume on the European nights and Origi’s first goal, seven minutes in, had come early enough to fill the stadium with the belief that, yes, it could happen. Sadio Mané, in particular, played as though affronted by the suggestion the tie could not be salvaged. Fabinho chose an ideal time to put in possibly his best performance in Liverpool’s colours and Wijnaldum can reflect on a hugely satisfying night’s work after replacing the injured Andrew Robertson at half-time. His first goal came nine minutes later when Alexander-Arnold lost the ball, then won it back, before firing in a low cross from the right that Wijnaldum, on the run, struck with enough power to find a gap beneath the dive of Ter Stegen. That made it 3-2 in Barça’s favour and when Wijnaldum followed the ball into the goal to wrestle it off the goalkeeper it summed up Liverpool’s attitude. They knew they could not delay. Wijnaldum wanted a quick restart and in their next attack, two minutes later, he was there to score again when Xherdan Shaqiri crossed from the left. It was a twisting header that dramatically changed the complexion of the match again. Lionel Messi dejected during the match. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian The problem for Liverpool was that Messi rarely lets the big occasions pass him by and, for this one, Klopp did not seem to have made any special provisions to restrain the five-times Ballon d’Or winner. Liverpool’s intention primarily was to let Barça worry about them. All of which meant Messi was free to amble into pockets of space, then suddenly the ball would be with him and he would pick up speed – a blur of fluorescent yellow followed by a clutch of players wearing all red. As for Suárez, the crowd did not bother with any superficial niceties as the Uruguayan returned to the ground where they once cherished his Machiavellian traits. “Fuck off Suárez,” came the hissed chant, over and again, from the supporters who had once afforded him something close to deification. Eventually, though, the crowd could forget about Suárez. Liverpool attacked in blitzes and Barça seemed unprepared judging by the misplaced header from Jordi Alba that let in Mané in the buildup to the opening goal. Mané picked up the loose ball and played in Jordan Henderson, running through the middle, for the initial shot. Ter Stegen managed to get his hand to Henderson’s shot but Origi was following up to put in the rebound. When Origi made it 4-0 there were still 11 minutes of normal play to go, plus another five from stoppages. Alisson was tremendous in Liverpool’s goal and the best compliment for Joël Matip was that he matched the performance of Virgil van Dijk, his partner in central defence. Not even Messi could save Barça and Liverpool, on this evidence, will take some stopping when they face either Ajax or Tottenham at the Wanda Metroplitano in Madrid on 1 June.<doc-sep>Somehow, at the end, I don’t know how, it makes no sense, but then life is occasionally like this, you think you know what to expect, and just at that moment the whole world explodes in fireworks. But somehow, there was Mohamed Salah, moments after the final whistle, standing in front of the Kop in a T-shirt that said “NEVER GIVE UP,” singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” along with 55,000 people all sharing the same out-of-body experience, 55,000 people whose minds were collectively 500 feet over Anfield. There was Salah, who hadn’t played in the match, but who’d done everything to help Liverpool reach it, singing at the top of his lungs and dancing for sheer joy, somehow providing the most dramatically resonant image from a game in which he hadn’t kicked a ball. The emotional opulence of Liverpool, its ingrained sense of its own grand destiny, is sometimes an irritating quality. But there are moments when restraint would be perverse. Liverpool came back from a 3-0 first-leg deficit against Barcelona—Lionel Messi’s team, the era’s defining superclub—to win the second leg 4-0 and reach the Champions League final. Having witnessed that, how are you supposed to process your experience except by clinging to your neighbor and weeping and bellowing show tunes? And somehow, because this is Liverpool, Salah, the club’s best player, was on hand to give a face to the collective apotheosis. I don’t know how it happened, but life is occasionally like this. Occasionally, Barcelona will come out sleepy and with no urgency, and play the game like a coder debugging software: Maybe we should probe over here; maybe there’s a weakness there. No? Oh well. And occasionally Liverpool, missing two of the world’s best strikers—Salah, who’s in the concussion protocol, and Roberto Firmino, who’s out with a muscle injury—will play with such positive fearlessness that an insurmountable 3-0 deficit doesn’t seem so insurmountable after all. And occasionally, it won’t be. Sometimes the world explodes in fireworks. I don’t know how it happens. Given the depleted state of Liverpool’s squad, it didn’t make sense when Divock Origi scored in the seventh minute. It didn’t make sense when Georginio Wijnaldum scored twice in 122 seconds to level the tie at 3-3 in the 56th minute. It certainly didn’t make sense when Trent Alexander-Arnold seemed to back off a corner kick in the 79th minute, only to run up and take it when Barcelona’s defenders moved off their men, sending a low ball to Origi at the edge of the 6-yard box. You thought you knew what to expect, but like Barcelona’s defenders, you didn’t: Origi got the ball unmarked. His shot blazed past Marc-André ter Stegen and into the net. 4-0. And at that point, if you had even the slightest affinity for Liverpool, your mind went 500 feet high. Never give up, Salah’s shirt said. And Liverpool didn’t. Make no mistake: They crushed Barcelona. This wasn’t one of those desperate, last-ditch, hold-on-and-pray sort of wins that sometimes happen when a weak team beats a very strong one. Liverpool had played about as well at the Camp Nou as you can play while still losing 3-0, and at Anfield, they deserved every inch of the 4-0 scoreline. Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp loves what he calls heavy metal football—physical, all-action, defenders and midfielders flying everywhere—and that was how Liverpool played Tuesday night. We used to joke that gegenpressing, Klopp’s signature tactic, looked like tiki-taka with the boring parts stripped out; Liverpool made Barça look tepid and theoretical, like bad critics reading a good book. Barcelona’s besetting weakness—like Roger Federer’s at times, and like Spain’s when the 2010 World Cup–winning team was starting to come apart—has always been a tendency to double down on its own serenity, to become quieter, slower, and stiller in the moments when it needs to get louder, more direct, and more ruthless. Patience beats chaos, but often in sports, the most beautiful patience will struggle to beat an equally beautiful rage. This is a Liverpool team that does nothing by halves. Even its survival in this form feels like a kind of miracle. Way back in 2015, when Klopp was hired, it felt as though Andrew W.K. had been hired to steer the Titanic. Klopp—a freewheeling, touchline-leaping, guitar-strumming, hair-transplant-getting, cool-glasses-wearing avatar of football fun—seemed to have no inner affinity for the culture of Liverpool, the most grandly tragic club in world soccer. I remember admiring the audacity of the pairing. I also remember thinking it might be a good idea to quietly put down $50 on the iceberg. It wasn’t that Liverpool was unfamiliar with the idea of fun. Fun had occasionally been allowed to take place in or near Anfield. Peter Crouch, a known enthusiast of both dancing and nachos, played for the club. So did Steven Gerrard, who, though he was rumored to have expressed his love for Phil Collins mostly by beating up DJs who refused to play “Sussudio,” did exhibit a certain fun-curious instinct by loving Phil Collins in the first place. Still, Liverpool’s normal emotional key was too exalted, too destiny-haunted for fun to have much purchase. For reasons both profound (the Hillsborough disaster) and terrible (Bob Paisley’s sport coats), the Reds were the club of undying memory and eternal flames, of heads held high in storms, of full-throated mass melodrama. The Kop oscillated between Miracle of Istanbul–style triumph and utter desolation; what use would it have for mere enjoyment? What was Jürgen Klopp doing within 50 miles of Merseyside? Klopp had merrily driven his unheralded Borussia Dortmund side (which, OK, did feature Robert Lewandowski) to two Bundesliga titles and a Champions League final. He was a good manager, no question. But he also reacted to big moments by whipping out roundhouse kicks on the touchline. He was brash, funny, unselfconscious, maybe slightly mad. You could imagine him as a smirking grasshopper in Alice in Wonderland. He seemed to thrive on not taking soccer too seriously, while the word “seriously” was not serious enough to describe how seriously Liverpool took it. When you put these two gloriously exaggerated, apparently incompatible essences together, what would be the result? We now know the answer to the question. Somehow, incredibly, Liverpool and Klopp intensified each other. The team is more Klopp than you’d ever have thought possible, while also being more Liverpool than ever before. Over the past four seasons, Klopp has transformed Liverpool into one of the most fun, most likable, most gifted, and most purely enjoyable soccer teams on the planet. And this season, that fun, likable, gifted, and purely enjoyable team seems hellbent on making every twist in its story as operatically over-the-top as possible. Every big win is a euphoric triumph over plausibility. Every downfall—say, the likely outcome of the Premier League title race—is the most heartbreaking result this side of a Stark family barbecue. Other clubs have comebacks; Liverpool has 4-0 vs. Barcelona to reach the Champions League final. Other clubs have near misses; Liverpool, if the matches this weekend go as seems most likely, scores more points than Manchester United has ever scored in a season and still finishes second in the Premier League … by one point. The way to combine Kloppian fun and Anfieldian melodrama in one team is to run soccer through an amplifier that starts at 11. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions about the Premier League title race. A miracle could happen. Manchester City, winner of 13 straight Premier League games, might drop points on Sunday to 17th-placed Brighton in the final game of the season, though if God means to let Vincent Kompany start blatzing in long-distance golazos, you have to think the odds are grim. An incredible European double is still possible. But right now, Liverpool seems poised between unbelievable heights and excruciating depths. On the one hand, the greatest club of the pre-Premiership era, which hasn’t won a title since before the Premier League was formed in 1992, falls short by the narrowest possible margin; it’s the plot of a horror movie.<doc-sep>
(CNN) On a frenetic, nerve-shredding night at Anfield, Liverpool completed one of the great Champions League comebacks to knock out Barcelona and reach a second consecutive final. Trailing 3-0 from the first leg and without two of its star strikers, Mo Salah and Roberto Firmino, few had given Liverpool even a glimmer of hope. But at Anfield, and especially in Europe, never count Liverpool out. Somehow, Jurgen Klopp's team conjured up four goals to win the semifinal 4-3 on aggregate. As they attempted to take on board the enormity of their achievement, a succession of players uttered the word "unbelievable." Klopp used a different word: "overwhelming," he told BT Sport. The greatest comeback? For Liverpool to qualify for the Champions League final, it would have to eclipse every great European night Anfield had ever seen. Liverpool fans have seen their fair share of improbable European comebacks to know that Tuesday's second leg against Barcelona wasn't entirely a lost cause. There is the 2004 victory over Olympiakos and Steven Gerrard's half volley, the 4-3 win over Borussia Dortmund in 2016 and Dejan Lovren's header. There is something in the air at Anfield that offers hope in even the bleakest of situations. Once the compulsory rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone" had been belted out before kick-off, it would have taken somebody brave to tell those 50,000 Liverpool fans this tie was already over. Lionel Messi was powerless to stop the Liverpool onslaught. There was emotion and electricity in the air and Barcelona would have been desperate to weather any early storms and prevent the memories of last year's nightmare quarterfinal against Roma to start flooding back. Having earned a 4-1 lead at the Camp Nou, Barcelona traveled to the Italian capital with one foot already in the semifinals. But an early Edin Dzeko goal set the Catalan nerves jangling, before a second-half capitulation completed the most unlikely of comebacks for Roma. As predicted, and as was required, Liverpool began at a blistering pace as their makeshift front three of Sadio Mane, Divock Origi and Xherdan Shaqiri hassled Barcelona's backline with the support of Jordan Henderson from midfield. It became immediately obvious that Jurgen Klopp's favored high press might yield success, as first Clement Lenglet and then Sergi Roberto gave the ball away under pressure. That Liverpool played well at the Camp Nou a week ago, despite the first-leg result, will have no doubt given the team and fans a glimmer of hope. Three gilt-edged opportunities squandered by Liverpool and another Lionel Messi masterclass perhaps gave the scoreline more gloss than Barcelona deserved. No chance? The men in red started as though they genuinely believed they had a chance and it took just seven minutes for them to force a Barcelona error and light the touch paper at Anfield. Joel Matip's wayward long ball was intercepted by Jordi Alba but the left back's weak header, intended for Lenglet, found only the feet of Mane. Mohamed Salah and Jurgen Klopp take in the adulation of the fans. The Senegal forward exchanged passes with Henderson, who showed impressive poise to dance his way through a crowded penalty area and force a save from Marc-André ter Stegen, but Origi was on hand to tap home the rebound. While it was certainly uncharacteristic of Barcelona's usually composed backline to give away an opening goal, the magician at the other end was causing Liverpool problems at regular intervals. With his first meaningful touch of the ball, Messi went on a powerful run, shrugging off Fabinho and laying a precise pass into Philippe Coutinho. In front of the Kop, the fans who as recently as last season would celebrate his goals, Coutinho struck a weak shot to allow Alisson to palm the ball away. Messi would go on to have three efforts on goal of his own, the first forcing Alisson into a smart save before two wicked, low drives had the Brazilian scrambling across his line. Halftime would have come as a welcome break for both sides, though the omens -- if you believe in them -- were looking good for Liverpool. Or rather, bad for Barcelona. At half time in the second leg against Roma, Ernesto Valverde's side also trailed 1-0. Liverpool couldn't, could they? Unlikely hero An enforced halftime substitution, Georginio Wijnaldum for the injured Andy Robertson, initially looked as though it would unsettle the home side. Instead, it unexpectedly turned this tie on its head. Barcelona fans could scarcely believe what they were witnessing.