LIVERPOOL: The night started with their team bus being smashed up by beer cans and bottles. It ended with their Champions League ambitions in pieces, too.

Manchester City’s players learnt Wednesday just why a trip to Anfield can be one of the most uncomfortable experiences in European football.

On an evening that will go down in the club’s long and storied lore, Liverpool reduced the best team in England to a rattled wreck by beating City 3-0 in the first leg of their Champions League quarter-final match, thanks to three goals in a devastating opening 31 minutes.

In the other quarter-final first leg on Wednesday, Barcelona beat Roma 4-1 thanks to a pair of own goals.

Like Real Madrid, who won 3-0 at Juventus on Tuesday, Barca look assured of a place in the semi-finals. And Liverpool are halfway there as well.

Mohamed Salah with his 38th goal of the season, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Sadio Mane all scored in front of The Kop, leaving City coach Pep Guardiola scratching his head as he paced his technical area and wondering where it all went wrong.

Was it the fact that his players came under attack before kick-off, with Liverpool fans chucking objects at City’s team bus as it traveled along Anfield Road the street running alongside the stadium before turning into the ground? Was it his tactical decision to drop winger Raheem Sterling and play an extra central midfielder in Ilkay Gundogan, a move that completely backfired? Or was it the fact that Liverpool can so often be just too hot to handle going forward? It might have been a mixture of the three. And it leaves City’s dream of a treble — having already won the League Cup and on the verge of clinching the Premier League in record time — in tatters.

“In this room,” Guardiola said to reporters, “I think there is nobody, except the guy talking to you, who believes we can go through. There are 90 minutes more, we are going to try.”

As important as Liverpool’s attacking brilliance in the first half was the team’s defensive resilience in the second half.

City finished the game without having a shot on target “I don’t know how we did that,” Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said and their star players muted.

David Silva was subdued, Kevin De Bruyne played too deep, Gabriel Jesus barely got a touch.

An away goal would have changed the complexion of the match, especially given that Salah hobbled off injured and could yet be a doubt for next week’s second leg at Etihad Stadium.

But, with centre back Dejan Lovren and right back Trent Alexander-Arnold excelling, Liverpool held firm and know scoring one goal in the return leg on Tuesday will leave City requiring an improbable five.

“We beat the best team in the world,” Klopp said.

“But we have to work,” he added. “You celebrate the party only when the party starts.”

From the moment Liverpool scored the opening goal in the 12th minute, City looked shell-shocked.

A stray pass from Leroy Sane allowed Liverpool to counter through James Milner’s pass down the right flank to Salah, who fed Roberto Firmino down the middle. Firmino’s shot was blocked by Kyle Walker, but the Brazilian managed to pass the ball across for Salah to send a rising shot into the net.

Oxlade-Chamberlain had his best game for Liverpool since his summer move from Arsenal and he rifled in the second goal in the 21st after referee Felix Brych played the advantage following Vincent Kompany’s foul from behind on Firmino.

Guardiola shook his head. De Bruyne barked at his teammates. But worse was to come for City.

Salah had a long-range shot blocked but after the ball came back to him, he sent over a curling cross that just went over Fernandinho’s head and was met with a headed finish by Mane.

It threatened to get even uglier for City in the final minutes of the half as they kept getting stretched by Liverpool’s forwards, with Nicolas Otamendi having a particularly tough time.

Liverpool didn’t want to hear the halftime whistle. And the sight of Salah hobbling off in the 52nd minute with what appeared a left groin injury gave hope to City.

The introduction of Sterling, for Gundogan, meant City reverted to their usual shape but Liverpool’s defending was excellent.

Liverpool last reached the semi-finals in 2008, when they lost to Chelsea. Hold out next week and the Reds will feel they are back where they belong.

OWN GOALS GALORE

Roma made the already daunting task of beating Barcelona that much harder after scoring two own goals to help the Spanish side secure a 4-1 victory in the opening leg of their quarter-final.

The pair of own goals by Daniele De Rossi and Kostas Manolas plus some sloppy defending that allowed Gerard Pique and Luis Suarez to also score left Roma on the verge of elimination before next week’s return leg in Rome.

“We committed individual mistakes and made it easier for them, and you can’t do that against Barcelona,” Roma coach Eusebio Di Francesco said.

With Roma reeling following their two self-inflicted wounds, Pique added a third goal for the hosts.

Edin Dzeko pulled one back for Roma in the 80th minute before Suarez scored Barcelona’s fourth, breaking his streak of 10 matches without a goal in the competition.

The victory extended Barcelona’s unbeaten run in the Champions League to 26 straight home matches, a streak that dates back to September 2013.

“Football is game of errors, you try to make your rival commit them while you limit yours,” Barcelona manager Ernesto Valverde said.

“We are happy because it was a complicated match, but they showed they are a good team and we have a long way to go before we can say we are in the semifinals.”

Roma, playing in quarter-finals for the first time in a decade, succeeded in disrupting the hosts’ ball-possession attack by pressuring up the pitch. But their defending lapses either produced or played a direct part in all four of Barcelona goals.

Lionel Messi showed no signs of being slowed down by the leg muscle problem that caused him to miss two friendlies for Argentina and be reserved as a substitute at Sevilla on Saturday, when his goal in the 89th-minute secured a 2-2 draw.

Messi had already forced Roma to swarm on several occasions to stop his runs before the visiting defense finally broke when Ivan Rakitic intercepted the ball near the box and started the attack that ended De Rossi’s costly error.

Messi sped into the area and passed for Andres Iniesta, whose returned pass to the Argentina forward would have left him in good striking position. De Rossi stretched to cut off the pass, only for the tip of his right boot to redirect the ball into the bottom corner of the net for the 38th-minute opener.Kostas suffered similar bad luck in the 55th when his clearance of a low cross by Rakitic hit the post and ricocheted off his knee before finally crossing the goal-line.

Pique made it 3-0 four minutes later when he only had to tap in the rebound from a save by goalkeeper Alisson Becker, who palmed a shot by Suarez right to the unmarked defender.

Suarez scored his first goal in the tournament since March 2017 after a Roma defender Federico Fazio tried to intercept a pass, instead leaving the ball for the Uruguay striker to drill home.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2018