The Europa League game between Liverpool and Unirea Urziceni at Anfield on Thursday Feb 18 2010.
From the moment Liverpool found themselves unceremoniously cast from Europe’s top table before Christmas, condemned to wander in the Europa League wilderness, the club has faced a dilemma. Try to win the consolation prize, or ignore an unnecessary distraction from domestic affairs.
After their first outing among the paupers, rather than princes, of European competition since 2004’s trip to Marseille, perhaps the question has changed. Liverpool are not being asked whether they should take this competition seriously, but whether the tournament should afford Rafael Benitez’s side the same respect.
Until David Ngog headed home from close range to calm Anfield’s frayed nerves with 10 minutes to play, the team that was, until a year ago, one of the most feared in Europe, a preternatural force which had swept the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Inter Milan aside, were being held at home with consummate ease by a Romanian side which had scarcely played for three months and whose warm up for this fixture, upon landing in England, was against Northwich Victoria, of the Conference North. Unirea Urziceni earned a hard-fought 1-0 win.
“It is not the best result,” admitted Rafael Benitez after the game. “We could have scored more but we kept a clean sheet, so it is not bad. In the second leg, they will have to attack, so maybe it will be better for us.”
Such is the only consolation for Liverpool as they come to terms with life in the shadows. There was no Handel blaring out from the tannoy, no rousing anthem to stir the 40,450 inside Anfield to life, only the strains of Yohan Zveig’s Europa League anthem. It was an evening for quiet contemplation.
Had Liverpool lived up to their bright start, it need not have been. The hosts could have been ahead after less than 60 seconds, Dirk Kuyt and Fabio Aurelio combining to tee up Steven Gerrard, the Liverpool captain’s shot venomous enough to ascertain that Giedrius Arlauskis, the Unirea goalkeeper, was warmed up.
The Kop roared, scenting blood, but the feeding frenzy never came. Unirea, content to sit on the edge of their own penalty box for much of the evening, more than lived up to Benitez’s promise that they would provide dour, doughty opposition.
Liverpool found themselves faced with a wall of white, unmoving, uncompromising. That they lacked the craft, the guile to bring it crashing down says much of Liverpool’s travails this season, abroad and at home. As ever, their failure to score an early goal, the only tonic which calms nerves frayed after a season of embarrassment and misadventure, played on their minds.
Kuyt went close, firing across the face of goal, while Gerrard headed wide before and after the break. Martin Skrtel and Aurelio, with a rasping drive, went close to breaking the deadlock, too. As ever, Liverpool’s territorial advantage, their control of possession, was almost complete. But gradually, predictably, they were soon reduced to hopeful long shots and the set-pieces the subsequent deflections brought. Liverpool have no invention, no imagination, no edge.
Alberto Aquilani, of course, was supposed to supply those precious commodities. The Italian is clearly a gifted player, technically adept and elegant on the ball, but he is equally obviously some way short of match fitness. He finds himself caught in a catch 22, unable to play in a struggling team without fitness, unable to get fit without playing. It is an unenviable position, and one his manager’s caution is scarcely easing.
“He has to play more games,” said Benitez. “Matches like tonight are not easy because the other team is so deep and to find the right pass and the right space all the time is difficult.” The sort of opponents suited to the Italian are dwindling. First the physical, now the defensive.
There were spells here, though, when he provided a glimpse of why Benitez was tempted to part with £17 million to bring him from Roma, but that it was his withdrawal in favour of a young substitute brought from Barcelona at little or no cost at all which, eventually, provided Liverpool with a chink of light, simply serves to highlight his struggles.
Daniel Pacheco replaced the Italian after 75 minutes, and five minutes later he had made the sort of decisive impact which seems these days to elude Aquilani and, for that matter, most of his elders and betters.
Ryan Babel, another substitute - for the worryingly erratic Albert Riera - curled in a fizzing cross from deep on the left and Pacheco, no more than 5’ 6”, nodded the ball into Ngog’s path, the Frenchman bundling home.
Embarrassment averted, just.
Gerrard went close, too, and the hosts, rightly, had a penalty claim waved away. But still Anfield sat, subdued, but hardly surprised, facing their own grim reality.
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