To Beat Atletico Madrid, Liverpool Players and Fans “Can’t Take Anything for Granted”

Liverpool and European comebacks. This Liverpool and European comebacks. They’ve made such a habit of it that, at times, one might almost take it for granted. Might start to assume that any deficit could be—would be—overcome.

To do it again, though, the players can’t take it for granted. And the fans can’t take if for granted, either. That was left back Andy Robertson’s message when he spoke to the press today ahead of Wednesday night’s decisive second leg.

“It’s something that us as players, and especially the fans, can’t take for granted,” he noted. “We can’t just show up and think the Anfield crowd is going to get us through, or they can’t think it’s going to be noisy so they don’t need to take part.

“We need everyone to be at 100 percent tomorrow night, whether that’s us or the staff or the fans—everyone needs to be at their best. Because we know the task we’re coming up against, we know how hard it’s going to be.”

Hard but not impossible. Not for this group. Not at Anfield if the players are on their games and the fans are at their loudest. And so there is real belief but also the knowledge that that belief has to be matched by the performances.

Do that, and anything is possible. Do that, and this Liverpool side know that while a result isn’t guaranteed, it’s very much possible. Because this side is more than good enough to beat anyone, as they’ve proven now many times.

“We think of all outcomes,” he added. “We did that when we were playing against teams over the last two years, even when we’ve gone into games in the lead. It’s a knockout competition and if you’re not at your best then you go out.

“We know tomorrow we could be out of the Champions League if we’re not at our best or things don’t go well. But we think about positives, we think about trying to give 100 percent so at least we can walk off knowing we’ve given it our all.

“Whether that’s good enough, we’ll wait and see. But we believe if we put in the performances we can beat any team. It’s up to us to show that.”