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Roberto Firmino Wants To Make European Competition “Suffer”

Firmino believes the Reds have what it takes to put up a good fight in the Champions League.

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Liverpool Training Session and Press Conference Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

On Wednesday, Liverpool will continue their Champions League run with the first game of the knockout stages, an away fixture against FC Porto. This is the moment fans have been waiting years for as Liverpool slowly rebuilt themselves over the past several seasons.

Now that they have made it into the final 16, Liverpool’s Brazilian attacker Roberto Firmino believes that they have what it takes to give other teams a fright.

“I don’t know if they’re going to be ‘afraid’ or not but we are going to make their life difficult, that’s for sure. We want to make them suffer,” he promised in a pre-match interview.

Speaking about their first challengers, FC Porto, Firmino was solicitous.

“They are an excellent team with tradition in the Champions League. It’s going to be a tough game and we’ll have to play our best tomorrow. I know a little bit about them. We haven’t seen the video yet, but I know they are going to be physically and tactically strong tomorrow.”

There will be high expectations for the Reds when they take the pitch on Wednesday. They are so far undefeated in all eight Champions League games this season, and the attacking trio of Firmino, Mohamed Salah, and Sadio Mané has been deadly to other teams. And of course there is also the addition of center-back Virgil van Dijk added to the mix to tighten up LIverpool’s defense — an area of concern for the team over the last several seasons, including the first half of this one.

Roberto Firmino is having a tremendous season, with no signs of slowing down. With an luck, he’ll nab another goal or two on Wednesday on the way to Liverpool’s first Champions League knockout stage victory in the FSG era.

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