Heavy metal' arrives in Liverpool as Klopp dumps Dortmund from Europe

Jurgen Klopp described the miraculous comeback against Borussia Dortmund as a unified sensory experience for everyone present.

LIVERPOOL, England -- It cannot quite be called the blueprint for an era. The night was too ragged, the ride too wild and the nerves too frayed for that. But there are times when none of that matters at all, times when common sense bears little relevance.
This was a visceral, emotional evening of raw energy. It was one that showed Anfield that heavy metal football can power through by sheer force of will. It was one that became a modern classic and ended with Jurgen Klopp -- a fist-pumping, thunderous presence on the touchline when Liverpool looked down and out -- walking from the pitch mopping his brow and mimicking a throbbing heart.
"I told the lads at halftime that a few Liverpool players who are now a bit older were once 3-0 down in a Champions League final," an elated, exhausted Klopp said in his postmatch news conference. The current vintage responded in kind, but even if the parallels with Istanbul in 2005 are valid, this match took on a spirit of its own.
European nights at Anfield are held dear in football folklore, but the old stadium, with its main stand currently being redeveloped while the team undergoes modernizations itself, has not seen many hit a crescendo such as this. It seemed Borussia Dortmund had taken the sting out of Liverpool's late rally by the time Dejan Lovren, rising high to meet James Milner's best delivery of a mixed night, headed home the astonishing, 91st-minute winner. The resulting din will reverberate long into the night, and the knock-on effect for Liverpool might be profound.
For a long time, this contest looked likely to be a dud. Both ends of the stadium were virtually full 20 minutes before kickoff, and both were in full song. When Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a quickfire second goal for the visitors, though, there was a danger that it would simply become a countdown to full-time, an already-settled friendly between two clubs with shared kin and a mutual appreciation that excused the number of half-and-half scarves on show.

Liverpool

Borussia Dortmund

4

3

FT

Leg 2Aggregate: 5 - 4

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Yet the atmosphere was never quite subdued. A corner for Liverpool halfway through the opening period was greeted by a leaping, punching exhortation by Klopp to the crowd around him, and they responded in kind. He would do the same eight minutes from time, after a few passes went astray, gesticulating to three sides of the ground to make his point with the game at 3-3. The tempo and intensity were relentless for 90 minutes; the accuracy and quality did not always match, but Liverpool's ferocious response was directly in the image of a manager for whom the idea of letting a game drift away is unthinkable.
"That's the moment in life when you have to show character," Klopp said of the moment when Marco Reus, scoring Dortmund's third goal just before the hour, appeared to have punctured the surge in optimism prompted by Divock Origi's 48th-minute goal. "And that's what the lads did. It was pretty cool to watch."
At times, it felt as if Liverpool, for all the constructive approach work of Philippe Coutinho and increased maturity of the rapidly improving Origi, were making headway by simply overwhelming their opponents. They threw bodies forward in a manner sometimes akin to a rugby maul trying to force its way over the goal line. Tactics, eventually, went out the window.
That was certainly the view of Klopp's opposite number, Thomas Tuchel, who seemed shell-shocked when facing the media afterward.
"If you expect an explanation, I probably have to disappoint you," he said. "An explanation would mean things are logical or tactical, at least, and none of that happened."
His team's collapse beggared belief. For long periods, this had been the kind of confident, sleek performance that Tuchel had predicted from a side that had appeared slightly inhibited in the first leg. Early on, Dortmund took advantage of Liverpool's rush to set the pace, including scoring from two devastatingly clean counter-attacks after moves broke down, and capitalized on the hosts' eagerness to build on Origi's goal to regain control.

Thursday's win over Borussia Dortmund might be remembered as the moment Liverpool truly became a Jurgen Klopp team.

According to Tuchel, the sea change came when Mamadou Sakho nodded in the third. "You noticed a change, a belief in the stadium and a feeling it was meant to be," he said.
It was a climax befitting a tie that, after a lower-key affair last week that was overshadowed by Klopp's homecoming, always felt as if it had something memorable to give. Perhaps it was the late contribution of Lovren, often a derided figure since he joined from Southampton in 2014, that best summed up the night.
Six minutes from the end, with the wind in Liverpool's sails, he was found alone at the far post by Milner and lashed a rash, hopeless, trademark centre-half's volley high and wide. The sighs were audible, and Liverpool barely launched an attack in the subsequent five minutes. When they did, the same combination bore the most unlikely of dividends. It was, simply, a night to suspend the disbelief, a time to put cynicism and old grudges on hold.
Before leaving the scene, Klopp walked over to applaud the visiting supporters, a traveling flock who used to hang on his every motion. They were too spent this time to muster anything but the faintest ripple of applause. It was a remarkable, clear-headed gesture of regard, given the mayhem unfolding elsewhere inside Anfield, but it is characteristic of the attitude growing in Klopp's Liverpool.
He explained after the game that, as "a sign of respect," he will not allow his players to tap the famous "This Is Anfield" sign on their way out on to the pitch until they have won a trophy on his watch. Against all the odds, the placard is now a giant step toward taking an almighty battering next season.