When you hear rival coaches talking down the prospects of certain clubs you expect there to be a machiavellian motive in there somewhere.
But Real Madrid are group winners and their coach, Carlo Ancelotti, surely couldn’t give monkeys whether Liverpool or Basel get through to the knockout stages of The Champions League when the final round of group fixtures as played out in a fortnight.
Yes, they would rather play Basel than Liverpool later in the competition. But we think that Carlo Ancelotti was shooting from the hip and giving an honest assessment of the team when he said, after Madrid’s game against Basel:
Basel can certainly compete in Liverpool. They are physically strong, like to play well and are well-organised. Though it is always difficult at Anfield, I see Basel having a slight advantage against Liverpool.
It’s an interesting comment form a top coach. We assume that the ‘slight advantage’ that he speaks of is not the two point lead in the group, but their playing style and current form. They gave Real a proper game and Toni Kroos admitted afterwards that:
We expected it to be a hard game and it was. Basel pressed us early on and made things difficult for us. They might have got a draw.
On their day Liverpool can beat anyone. But, right now, they are susceptible to even half decent sides and Basel are one of those. They remind us of a surprise package in a World Cup. A side of low profile players who perform brilliantly as a team.
Without wishing to hex this one, we feel that the atmosphere on the night will help the Liverpool players no end. With that sort of passion and noise in the stadium Liverpool will be pumped up to give a proper performance and we reckon that they will run out winners. Then the hard work really begins…
