Champions League day 2
A rough Wednesday evening for English clubs
Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool FC had two tough opponents and took no points from them. The Spurs fell at home against the mighty FC Barcelona and a brace from Lionel Messi 2-4 at Wembley stadium.
Tottenham did manage to comeback in this game from 2-0 down to 2-1 and 3-1 down to 3-2 but Messi was so brilliant. With two losses in two games, the Spurs are already against the wall and must take six points from the Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven but it will not be an easy task.
Coach Pochettino understands his team is not up to the challenge:
“To start the game and after a minute-and-a-half to concede a goal was so difficult for the team. If you play football you know that emotion…you plan to play in a certain way and that destroys everything.
Then unbelievable, the second time they arrive on 30 minutes, a great goal scored from Rakitic. That was so tough.
In the second half the team believed and we competed in a very good way. I’m so proud about that, playing against a team like this with the handicap from the beginning. The team gave everything and if Lucas scored, it’s 3-3 and maybe we are talking in a different way.”
The game was so open. We tried to go forward and tried to score and were so brave. We were always in the game…in the last minute when we conceded the fourth goal the game was over, but I feel proud.”
Reds are down
Liverpool has not won for the past three games and a draw in Naples would have a been a good result… But, while Liverpool FC thought they had taken a point from Napoli, the Italians found a way to score a goal at the last minute to steal the victory 1-0. The group is wide-opened and could probably be decided on the last match days when Liverpool travel to Paris to face PSG.
The FrencH team dismantled Red Star Belgrade 6-1 with a hat-trick from Neymar. Cavani and Mbappé also added a goal each.
Coach Klopp on the harsh defeat:
“The start of the game was OK, it was like we wanted it, and then we had… the timing for our defensive movements were not good enough, we did not close the spaces in the right moment.
We didn’t react in the right situation so they could play through our formation. Things like this happen in a game very often but not as often as it happened tonight, and that costs energy because we closed these gaps too late. To close it we had to fight really hard for it and then when you have the ball you have to play much calmer than we did.
Now tonight, we didn’t perform and that’s how football works – against a good side in the Champions League, you lose. That’s happened and not more. We don’t have to think now about intensity or whatever.”
