Key occasions
44 minutes: Good work after which a nasty miss from Gakpo, who carriees the ball to the sting of the world, spins away from two defenders and in so doing leaves Vindahl horribly uncovered and out of place, earlier than taking pictures into the keeper anyway.
43 minutes: Asgar Sorensen has been compelled off, and Matej Rynes has changed him.
42 minutes: Save! Gakpo’s snap shot on the flip is saved out by Vindahl.
40 minutes: Haraslin is performed by means of, however Kelleher and Konate mix to cease him scoring, and the linesman’s flag means it wouldn’t have counted anyway.
39 minutes: Anyway, to extra essential issues. “So, are we simply fully discounting the concept that the squad travelled on that bus? Embracing their internal Pensioners-on-a-Saga-Coach-Journey?” posits Matt Dony. Nicely, these don’t appear like the steps of a coach (although we by no means truly see a aircraft, so I suppose it’s potential).
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37 minutes: What sorcery is defending the Liverpool objective tonight? Kuchta has an excellent likelihood from simply to the left of objective, which Kelleher does properly to divert into the trail of Birmancevic, who will get his ft in probably the most hopeless muddle and one way or the other misses an open objective!
36 minutes: Endo sidefoots over the bar from a nook. Liverpool have scored with each shot on course.
33 minutes: An opportunity of kinds for Sparta, however the cross is fired in from the proper with such venom that Jan Kuchta has no time to alter his physique place and is left with no alternative however to attempt to flip the ball goalwards from 10 yards with the closest accessible physique half, which is his abdomen. It goes over.
30 minutes: It’s Klopp’s 476th recreation as supervisor, so he’s operating at 2.1 objectives per recreation. That is an absurdly harsh scoreline for Prague, who ought to actually have scored at the least as soon as themselves and are but to concede a shot from a good place in open play.
28 minutes: Landmark alert! That’s the 1,000th aggressive objective scored by Liverpool underneath Jurgen Klopp.
🎇 – Darwin Núñez🇺🇾 scores Liverpool’s 1⃣0⃣0⃣0⃣th aggressive objective underneath supervisor Jürgen Klopp🇩🇪. The primary was scored by Emre Can🇩🇪 in a 1-1 Europa League group stage draw at dwelling in opposition to Rubin Kazan on 22 October 2015. #UEL #SPPLIV
— Gracenote Dwell (@GracenoteLive) March 7, 2024
GOAL! Sporting Prague 0-2 Liverpool (Nunez, 25 minutes)
And that’s one other approach to raise the stress! Nunez cuts onto his proper foot after which curls a shot over Vindahl and into the again of the online from 25 yards! The keeper thinks it’s heading to the highest nook and is then wrong-handed when it finally ends up curling over his proper shoulder.
22 minutes: Kelleher catches a cross, lands on his again and stays down for some time, as a lot to deflate Sparta’s balloon as something I’d think about.
21 minutes: Prime save from Kelleher! It is a barrage from Sparta (though it was a defensive back-header that brought on the difficulty that point)!
20 minutes: Kounate with a double butt-cheek save! Preciado will get down the proper and crosses however Kounate will get his arse in the best way. It rebounds again to Preciado who has a shot this time, however Kounate’s bum saves the day once more!
17 minutes: And one other good break from the house aspect, nevertheless it ends with a cross floating into Kelleher’s palms.
15 minutes: Unimaginable save and clearance from Liverpool! Sparta ship in a low cross from the proper and Haraslin is solely unmarked coming in on the far submit. He shoots throughout objective however Kelleher will get a glove on it to take all of the tempo off it, and Gomez overhead-clears it again to his keeper!
14 minutes: A good run from Gakpo ends when he goes down 22 yards from objective, and is instructed to get again up once more.
13 minutes: Lukas Haraslin has a really lengthy throw.
10 minutes: Haraslin is rugby-tackled by Endo, who may have been booked for that form of nonsense, however isn’t. “So anyone spends a pair days driving the bus from Liverpool to Prague, simply so the gamers can journey in it from the resort to the stadium?” boggles Joe Pearson. “That strikes me as completely weird. Possibly they’ve a couple of buses simply salted away in garages throughout Europe. That would appear extra affordable.” I suppose they wish to do every part they will to make the gamers comfy and relaxed. Each little counts, amiright?
8 minutes: Sparta win a free-kick on the left, which Gakpo heads out of hazard.
GOAL! Sparta Prague 0-1 Liverpool (Mac Allister, 6 minutes)
The keeper dives to his left, and Mac Allister rolls the ball simply inside the alternative nook!
Penalty to Liverpool!
6 minutes: The VAR has spoken, and Mac Allister can have an opportunity to attain from the spot!
5 minutes: Liverpool are going to get a penalty right here. Sorensen turns into hassle, Mac Allister nicks the ball and he’s then introduced down. VAR is taking a look.
2 minutes: Probability for Liverpool! Endo intercepts a objective kick after which dispossesses a defender, and the ball runs into the field to Nunez, who doesn’t actually do something very a lot with it. He takes it around the advancing keeper, however then takes an pointless contact slightly than taking pictures and when the hassle ultimately does come, it’s garbage..
2 minutes: The capability of Stadion Letna is simply 18,887, however they look like making a proper racket.
1 min: Peeeeeeep! Soccer! Liverpool get the ball rolling.
The gamers are out, palms have been shaken, and staff pictures taken. Soccer very shortly!
The gamers have gathered in a darkish subterranean house I assume to be the tunnel. Soccer shortly!
Jurgen Klopp has a chat:
We’ve gamers accessible and we needed to make selections about who ought to play once more, or already. It’s an excellent line-up, we have now choices on the bench, however will probably be a tricky recreation, very optimistic and optimistic opponent I’d say, so we have now to cope with that. Rotation, it’s a luxurious. You need to determine how we may use who and when. We didn’t have that drawback for a very long time, the boys who had been accessible performed on a regular basis. Now a couple of have come again nevertheless it stays intense. You simply must be sure to’re prepared for every single recreation.
Presumably Liverpool drive their membership coach to each European away recreation, however that’s a variety of miles – in response to a well-liked on-line search and mapping firm one of the best route from Anfield to Stadion Letná is 1,006 miles lengthy.
The groups!
The groups are in and so they appear like this:
Sparta Prague: Vindahl, Sorensen, Vitik, Krejci, Preciado, Solbakken, Kairinen, Zeleny, Birmancevic, Kuchta, Haraslin. Subs: Olatunji, Karabec, Tuci, Sadilek, Mejdr, Laci, Vorel, Vydra, Wiesner, Sevcik, Rynes, Surovcik.
Liverpool: Kelleher, Gomez, Quansah, Konate, Robertson, Elliott, Endo, Mac Allister, Nunez, Gakpo, Diaz. Subs: van Dijk, Szoboszlai, Salah, Adrian, Tsimikas, Clark, Gordon, McConnell, Koumas, Bradley, Mrozek, Musialowski.
Referee: José María Sánchez (Spain)
Our staff to tackle Sparta Prague 💪
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) March 7, 2024
Preamble
The dangerous information for Liverpool, lower than 72 hours earlier than their crunch Premier League encounter with Manchester Metropolis, is that their weekend opponents have their ft up, having eased previous Copenhagen within the Champions League final night time regardless of resting seven members of the staff that began the Manchester derby and taking one other one off at half-time.
Liverpool in the meantime have a primary leg in Prague to cope with, and there should be a temptation, with a rematch at Anfield subsequent week to fall again on, to see what they will get away with. Sparta got here second of their group to Rangers whereas shedding away to each them and Actual Betis, and once more at Galatasaray within the knockout spherical play-offs. Travelling doesn’t appear to be their sturdy level (they’re 4 factors clear on the prime of the Czech league, and unbeaten at dwelling, however haven’t received as many away factors as Slavia Prague). So maintain it tight tonight and run rampant at Anfield, sure?
Mo Salah is again within the squad having performed simply as soon as for the membership since January. However how a lot will we see of him? Presumably, simply sufficient to ship him into the weekend purring. “What can we give him? How a lot can we use him? We’ll see that,” promised Jurgen Klopp.
“We anticipate a really robust recreation,” Alexis Mac Allister mentioned yesterday. “We all know that they’re unbeaten at dwelling, prime of the league, and that tells you that they’re an excellent staff. In fact we have now seen some movies and we all know what they do, however we have to deal with ourselves. If we deal with ourselves we have now the prospect to win this recreation and that’s what we would like. However they’re undoubtedly an excellent staff and it’ll be an incredible battle.”
It guarantees to be an attention-grabbing night. Right here’s Andy Hunter’s preview:
Mohamed Salah is in line to make his Liverpool comeback in opposition to Sparta Prague on Thursday with Jürgen Klopp admitting he wants his main goalscorer for a crucial interval within the quadruple-chasing season.
Salah has given Liverpool one other raise forward of the Europa League final‑16 first leg tie and Sunday’s prime of the desk conflict with Manchester Metropolis by resuming coaching after greater than a fortnight out with a hamstring harm.
Klopp claimed the ahead, who has scored 19 objectives this season, could not have been thought-about for the journey to Prague underneath regular circumstances, having solely returned to coaching on Monday. However with each legs of the Europa tie, Metropolis’s go to to Anfield plus an FA Cup journey to Manchester United all to come back within the subsequent 11 days, the Liverpool supervisor wants Salah again in control urgently.
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