Liverpool have played countless unforgettable European matches since they first entered continental football in 1964 but there haven’t been too many in the round of 16.
Jurgen Klopp has arguably had more of them than any of his predecessors, starting with when his side knocked Manchester United out of the Europa League in his first season at the helm.
They won 5-0 Porto at this stage in their first crack at the Champions League and took down Bayern Munich the following year on the club’s route to becoming kings of Europe for a sixth time.
But there was a time in the not too distant past when Liverpool were unaccustomed to playing massive matches in European competition.
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The idea of the Reds going 16 years without reaching a continental final feels like an alien concept now, yet that was the challenge facing Gerard Houllier in 2001.
Liverpool had been banned from European competition for seven years following the Heysel Stadium tragedy and had struggled to make much of an imprint throughout the 1990s once they returned.
However, twenty-one years ago this week they had the first statement victory in Europe which modern-era Liverpool enjoyed. A match which The Times described as “their most significant result for more than a decade.”
And with Klopp preparing to take on Inter Milan on Wednesday, the Reds’ 2-0 win at Roma in 2001 remains the previous instance of the club playing the first leg of a European tie on Italian soil.
It’s worth putting the size of the challenge which faced Houllier’s side into context.
Roma were six points clear in Serie A on the day of the game and would go on to win their first title since 1983.
They remained unbeaten at home throughout their league campaign that season and were the seventh best team in Europe ( per Clubelo ) at the time.
Football writer Jonathan Wilson covered the match in his excellent book ‘The Anatomy of Liverpool’, and he noted that the Reds were definite underdogs:
“Liverpool were 16/1 shots to lift the trophy ahead of the tie. Roma were 9/2, tucked in behind the 4/1 favourites, Barca,” Wilson wrote.
“That pecking order is worth revisiting, purely because Liverpool’s subsequent victory in the tournament, and their defeat of Roma on the way, is seriously undervalued as an achievement.”
Although manager Fabio Capello was without Francisco Totti, with Gabriel Batistuta only fit enough to take a spot on the bench, Liverpool were missing Steven Gerrard, Emile Heskey and Danny Murphy, a trio of key players.
As well as this being their first big European win on Houllier’s watch, this match also made clear how his team would play in the most difficult of away matches.
While it would be going too far to say they ‘parked the bus’ in modern parlance, they certainly remained compact in their 4-4-2 formation and looked to hit Roma on the counter.
The home side played a back three with Cafu and Candela at wing-back, so Houllier got his team to hit long balls into the channels behind them for Robbie Fowler and Michael Owen to chase.
As the current Inter side play in a 3-5-2 formation, Klopp may ask his team to attack in similar fashion at times on Wednesday evening.
The plan worked very well on the whole for the Reds of 2001. Yet had Marco Delvecchio converted Roma’s one clear-cut chance of the match shortly before half time, things might have worked out very differently.
Thankfully for Liverpool he headed wide of the near post, and within a minute of the restart following the interval they went ahead.
Only Amadeo Mangone will know what he was trying to achieve when passing the ball across the Roma back line, but his effort went straight to Michael Owen.
The 21-year-old bought a yard of space and fired a low shot into the opposite corner of the net. It was Owen’s first goal of 2001, and he ended the year with the Ballon d’Or. It all started here.
Roma fought to get back into the game but the Reds (sporting their orange away kit) defended superbly.
Although the home side had eight shots in the second half, none of them were from closer than approximately 12 yards from goal.
And Owen had one from significantly closer than that. In the 71st minute he got his head onto a cross from Christian Ziege in the six-yard-box and guided the ball past Francesco Antonioli to put Liverpool in the driving seat for a quarter-final berth.
Houllier was understandably delighted with the performance of his team. “To come to the home of the Serie A leaders and win so well, so convincingly, is absolutely wonderful,” he said after the match.
From there his side knocked out Porto, Barcelona and won a crazy final against Alaves to secure the UEFA Cup and complete their 2001 cup treble.
It was here that the journey to that remarkable achievement truly began, and Klopp will hope his side embarks along a similar trophy-gathering pathway in Milan on Wednesday night.
