Friendly fire for Liverpool and Roma

1.2210498-339661124 — Liverpool players warm-up during a training session at Melwood Training Ground. Image Credit: Reuters

Manchester: The Champions League is down to the semi-finals — and clubs from Europe’s four biggest football nations still have a shot at the title.

For the first time since 1981, teams from Spain (Real Madrid), England (Liverpool), Italy (Roma) and Germany (Bayern Munich) make up the last four of Europe’s elite club competition.

Three of them are aristocrats of the continent, with Real, Bayern and Liverpool having won the competition 22 times between them. Roma have never been European champions but cannot be discounted after their historic comeback against Barcelona in the quarter-finals.

Much of the talk ahead of Tuesday’s match between the two surprising teams in this season’s competition has centred on Mohammad Salah, Liverpool’s prolific forward who joined from Roma in June.

Salah has scored 41 goals in all competitions — eight of which have come in the Champions League — and on Sunday was voted English football’s Player of the Year.

“We’ve warned him not to do anything special or he’ll be for it,” said Roma right back Bruno Peres. “Before the match, we’re not thinking about friendship, after it, yes.

“We know what he’s capable of and we know he’s in brilliant form.”

Liverpool had to come through a play-off round in August to reach the group stages and are the only unbeaten team in the Champions League. They are also the competition’s top-scoring team with 33 goals, five coming against Manchester City in the quarter-finals.

Anfield can be an intimidating fortress for Liverpool in Europe. They can destroy opponents in quick bursts chiefly via their attacking trio of Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino.

Yet Roma are full of confidence after a stunning 3-0 victory over Barcelona that saw the team reach the semi-finals on away goals.

They warmed up for the Anfield test with a comfortable 3-0 win at SPAL in Serie A on Saturday.

“The performance was excellent,” said Di Francesco. “The team’s attitude three days before such an important match with Liverpool is an important step in the right direction. This is a side that has great goals in its head, a team that looks at the present and not the future, and it’s a moment of great satisfaction for me.

“Of course, against Liverpool this precision and solidity we must have from the beginning.”

Di Francesco never had a chance to work with Salah. If there is any regret at missing out on the chance to coach such a talent, then he hides it well, though he does note his players’ praise for “a great guy, a great professional, a hard worker”.

“I don’t need them to tell me,” he told The Guardian when asked if he has sought out advice from his defenders on how best to frustrate Salah. “His qualities are very clear. Don’t forget that I prepared games against him in Italy, too. But the fact lots of our players know him well, that can be an advantage.”

Czech forward Patrick Schick scored his first goal for Roma against SPAL since he joined on loan from Sampdoria last August.

“Now there’s Liverpool,” he said. “We must prepare for that game and have the same attitude we did against Barcelona.

“Liverpool are a side of great quality. The first leg is away from home and that can be an advantage, but also makes it very difficult to prepare tactically.

“I know the starting XI, it’s all planned, but I won’t tell you.”

Wednesday’s clash is no less mouthwatering.

Spanish representation in the semi-finals has been cut to one team for the first time since 2010. The fact that team is Real Madrid isn’t a surprise.

Seeking a record-extending 13th European title, real are in the semi-finals for the eighth straight year and are meeting Bayern at this stage for the seventh time in the competition’s history. The most recent was 2014, when real won home and away against a team coached by Pep Guardiola.

Now the German team is coached by Jupp Heynckes, who led Bayern to the title in 2013 before his first retirement. Heynckes came back in October to rescue Bayern after their faltering start to the season led to Carlo Ancelotti’s departure and Heynckes has already said he will not be staying on beyond this season.

Heynckes led Bayern to a Champions League-Bundesliga-German Cup treble in 2013 and is attempting to do so again, having already won the league and reached the final of the cup.

Bayern have been eliminated by Spanish opposition every year since Heynckes first retired, and Madrid are the favourites heading into the two legs.

The defending champions travel to Germany after a full week of rest and preparation since their last match, a 1-1 draw at home to Athletic Bilbao. They received the extra days off because their Spanish league match against Sevilla, originally scheduled for this weekend, was moved to next month after Sevilla reached the Copa del Rey final, where they were humbled 5-0 by Barcelona.

Zinedine Zidane should be able to count on all his first-choice players and must decide whether to start playmaker Isco or winger Gareth Bale up front with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.

Ronaldo will be seeking to continue his incredible scoring run after having scored in all 10 matches in the competition this campaign for a total of 15 goals.

Jerome Boateng says only a defensive team effort can prevent Ronaldo adding to his mind-blowing tally of nine goals in six games against Bayern.

“We can only stop Cristiano Ronaldo as a team,” Bayern centre-back Boateng told German magazine Kicker.

In front of goal, he’s like a machine.

“You can’t shut him out completely, he always gets his chances in a game, because of the lines he runs and his excellent timing.

“Real base their game around him and it’s important we give him as little room as possible.”

Ronaldo was at his lethal best when Real beat Bayern 6-3 on aggregate in last season’s quarter-finals — scoring five of their goals.

He hit two second-half goals as Real came from behind to win 2-1 in Munich, then bagged a hat-trick in a 4-2 extra-time win in Madrid.

That came after he scored twice in Munich in the 2014 semi-final 4-0 rout of Bayern and hit two more against the Bavarians in the 2012 semis.

“There is a no more complete striker than Ronaldo. Left foot, right foot, header — he is in perfect control of everything he does,” said Boateng.

In his six Champions League knockout games for Bayern against Ronaldo’s Real, Boateng has lost five of them.

His only success was a 2-1 win in Munich in the 2012 semi-finals when Bayern later progressed by winning a penalty shoot-out in Madrid after losing 2-1 in the second-leg.

“I went through only once against him with Bayern, but twice we have gone out,” said Boateng.

“He also has the best teammates at Real.

“Shutting him out is only 50 per cent of it, the other players are simply too good for that at this level.”