LIVERPOOL: Liverpool’s Emre Can scores during the Champions League playoff second leg against Hoffenheim at Anfield.—AFP
LONDON: Juergen Klopp had just seen his Liverpool team slice open Hoffenheim to score a third goal in the opening 21 minutes when he turned to the celebrating Anfield crowd and roared: “That’s football!”
Liverpool returned to the Champions League group stage in some style on Wednesday.
With the attacking trio of Roberto Firmino, Mo Salah and Sadio Mane combining brilliantly, Liverpool beat Hoffenheim 4-2, completing a 6-3 aggregate victory, with a devastating attacking display to seal a return to Europe’s elite club competition after a two-season absence.
“I do not have enough words. It is amazing,” Liverpool manager Klopp told BT Sport. “It is 14 months of the hardest work and it feels amazing.
“A big, big, big compliment to my team. The start of the game was like a thunderstorm. We were so dangerous, so clinical. We could have scored even more.”
Portugal’s Sporting Lisbon also went on the rampage, scoring four times in the last half hour to beat former European champions Steaua Bucharest, now known as FCSB, 5-1 away after they had been held 0-0 at home in the first leg.
Qarabag became the first team from Azerbaijan to reach the group stage when they qualified on away goals after losing 2-1 away to FC Copenhagen, while APOEL Nicosia and CSKA Moscow also went through.
Hoffenheim are playing in European competition for the first time in their history this season and were swept away on another atmospheric night at Anfield.
Liverpool looked like scoring every time they attacked against Hoffenheim and could easily have hit double figures although their defence looked vulnerable.
Emre Can broke through in the 10th minute when his shot was deflected off Kevin Vogt and beat Oliver Baumann inside his near post, the start of a long night for the Hoffenheim goalkeeper.
Egyptian winger Salah struck in the 18th minute, tapping in from close range after Georginio Wijnaldum’s shot from Firmino’s left-wing cut-back bounced back off the right-hand post.
The third goal was masterful, with Mane breaking clear, cutting inside and backheeling the ball to Firmino, whose cross to the far post was tucked home on the volley by Can.
Hoffenheim coach Julian Nagelsmann quickly made a tactical substitution, replacing Havard Nordtveit with Mark Uth, who almost immediately pulled one back with an angled shot.
The Germans began to look threatening as Serge Gnabry twice went close and Uth forced Simon Mignolet to prevent a second goal which could have changed the complexion of the game.