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VILLARREAL, Spain — Liverpool march on in their pursuit of the Quadruple. Though they can now prepare for a 10th Champions League final later this month, against either Manchester City or Real Madrid in Paris, it required another display of the club’s incredible resilience in European competition on Tuesday to seal a 3-2 win against Villarreal at Estadio de la Ceramica.
Jurgen Klopp’s squad were so poor in the first half — outrun, out-tackled and out-thought by their Spanish opponents — that goals by Boulaye Dia and Francis Coquelin had given Villarreal a 2-0 lead which cancelled out Liverpool’s two-goal advantage from last week’s first-leg. Liverpool’s three touches in Villarreal’s box before the half was their lowest in a first half all season in all competitions.
Had referee Danny Makkelie awarded the home side a penalty on 37 minutes — four minutes before Coquelin’s headed goal — after goalkeeper Alisson Becker appeared to bring down Giovani Lo Celso, Liverpool could have gone in trailing 3-0 at halftime, their season threatening to implode in front of a blizzard of 23,000 yellow flags.
But Klopp’s decision to replace Diogo Jota with Luis Diaz at the break turned the game in Liverpool’s favour as the Colombian winger transformed his team’s approach from submission to aggressive ambition.
Diaz ran at Villarreal, defused their first-half tempo and allowed Liverpool to gain control of the game. By the time Villarreal keeper Geronimo Rulli gave Klopp’s side a helping hand with a series of costly errors, Diaz had switched the momentum and made it an inevitability that Liverpool would reach a third Champions League final in five seasons.
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“Coming back like we came back in the second-half was really special,” Klopp said. “Luis (Diaz) had a massive impact — Diogo Jota wasn’t the problem in the first half, we had 11 problems. We just needed to mix it up a bit. I wanted the…
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Source : espn
