Tomorrow’s match is the most important match of the season.
Villarreal. Be careful what you ask for.
Both the quarterfinals draw and the actual quarterfinals turned out exactly as LFC supporters would have hoped. First, we drew Benfica, the weakest team remaining. Then, shockingly, the next-weakest team (on paper), Villarreal, somehow scraped an upset over the mighty Bayern Munich. Bayern, which recently sealed its 10th consecutive Bundesliga title. Bayern, which fivethirtyeight.com hails as the best attacking team in the land.
So now, instead of our expected showdown with a fellow European giant, we will be facing the seventh-placed team in La Liga, who come from a town populated by only 50,000 people. A team ranked a quite respectable 12th in fivethirtyeight.com’s global ratings, which nonetheless leaves them well below Bayern’s lofty #3 ranking. Villarreal are cute underdogs. Their bright, yellow uniforms led them to garner the nickname the “Yellow Submarine,” a Liverpudlian song you will likely hear when LFC visit Spain next week.
Be careful what you ask for.
The manager of little Villarreal is Unai Emery, erstwhile leader at Sevilla, PSG, and Arsenal. Emery’s time at PSG and Arsenal was mostly underwhelming. But Sevilla was a different story. At Sevilla, Emery had a situation not unlike his current one at Villarreal. Seville is a bona fide city, rather than a relatively small town. But like Villarreal now, Emery’s Sevilla teams did not compete near the top of La Liga. In 2013-14, in Emery’s first full season, Sevilla finished only fifth in the league. But they won their first Europa League title that year, besting none other than Benfica in the final. They qualified for the Europa League again. And, the next season, 2014-15, Sevilla won it again, this time over Ukrainian team Dnipro. At that point UEFA had added automatic Champions League qualification as a prize for winning the Europa League. Thus, in 2015-16, Sevilla found itself in the group stages of the Champions League. They finished third in their group. Similarly, they finished seventh in La Liga. But, as a third-place finisher in their CL group, Sevilla qualified to “drop into” the knockout rounds of the Europa League. Sevilla then proceeded to march through those knockout rounds, making it all the way to the final in Basel, Switzerland against Jürgen Klopp’s first Liverpool squad. Liverpool battered Sevilla in the first half, but managed only a solitary goal for their efforts. Thanks in part to an Alberto Moreno gaffe in the opening seconds of the second half, Sevilla immediately equalized. They then scored an additional two goals, beating LFC by the convincing scoreline of 3-1. Emery and Sevilla had accomplished a near-miracle, winning a European tournament three consecutive times.
Now, Emery is back with a little Spanish underdog. Once again, Emery’s squad is meandering through a mediocre league season, while channeling its full energy into a riveting, rocketing run toward a European cup title.
This season, Villarreal found itself in a Champions League group with Manchester United, Italian media darlings Atalanta, and Young Boys of Switzerland. Man United and Atalanta were favorites to emerge from that group, but Emery’s canary-colored submariners had other plans. United managed to beat them in both group games. But Villarreal got a draw and a victory against Atalanta, and beat Young Boys both times, which was enough to finish second in the group and advance to the Round of 16. First up was Juventus, European royalty. No problem — after a 1-1 draw in Spain, Emery’s team swamped Juve 0-3 in the second leg in Italy. Next came Bayern. In the first leg in Spain, Villarreal eked out a 1-0 win. In the second leg, Bayern scored relatively early to pull even on aggregate. Then, the top attacking team in the world attacked the Yellow Submarine with everything they could muster. But Villarreal hung in. They blocked Bayern at every turn. And, then, in a counterattacking moment of magic, Villarreal struck in the 88th minute to steal the cup tie. And now they find themselves in a Champions League semifinal, facing yet another European giant. Can there be any doubt Villarreal believe they will win this?
Villarreal will get pushed back against Liverpool, just as they were against Bayern. But, they will defend very well. And, unlike Everton on Sunday, Villarreal will also mix in some pressing, some excellent passing, and some potentially scintillating counterattacks.
The good news for the Reds is that by far Villarreal’s biggest scoring threat, striker Gerard Moreno, is out with a pulled hamstring. He might recover by next week’s second leg, but he will not feature tomorrow. But, regardless, the counter threat will always be real and serious with Villarreal.
Nothing is going to come easy against this team, but they could easily break our hearts.
I’m beginning to believe that Jürgen is going to try to get away with shortening his rotations for the remainder of the season, like an NBA team in the playoffs. Whereas I recently suggested that Klopp would always be starting two from the midfield four of Fabinho, Henderson, Thiago, and Keïta, recent evidence suggests that he actually plans to start THREE of those four in every match. And, barring some surprises (such as having a big lead going into the second leg in Spain next week), I think Klopp will continue that plan for as long as the health of his guys holds out. He will, of course, substitute for them judiciously. Similarly, I’m beginning to think that Mo Salah, Trent, and Virgil Van Dijk might find themselves starting every match (again, barring some surprises).
I think Klopp will continue to rotate his other forwards, however. Firmino remains unavailable while recovering from a foot injury suffered in the FA Cup semifinal. Apparently Tsimikas also did not appear in training yesterday, although Klopp said nothing about him being out in his press conference. I would have picked Tsimikas to start this one, but maybe he is more likely to get Saturday’s game against Newcastle, based on the fact that his absence in training suggests he may have a fitness issue.
I’m hoping Thiago doesn’t start this one, because he’s started the last three. In my opinion, Fabinho is critically needed against a good counterattacking team, so he should start even though he could also use a rest. I’ll guess that Keïta and Hendo feature in front of him.
I’ll guess that the prime-time forward line of Díaz, Mané, and Salah start this one, leaving Jota available to play the Super Sub role.
Finally, I think Konaté plays this one, as he’s been featuring in a lot of the Champions League matches.
So, my guess at a lineup:
This is going to be tough. They will be difficult to break down. And I think they will get behind our defense at least twice with their clever, fast, well-coordinated counterattacks.
But we should survive.
LFC 1 – Villarreal 0
