Champions League Updates: Liverpool Beats Villarreal to Reach Final
Villarreal #Villarreal
VILLAREAL, Spain — The song spread around the Estadio de la Céramica, out from the little corner beneath the scoreboard where Villarreal’s most raucous fans are housed, as Liverpool played out the final passes and the clock ticked beyond 90, until the whole stadium was standing as one. The home fans held their scarves high above their heads, their pride masking the pain.
Villarreal came close on Tuesday, closer than anyone could really have imagined, to making the Champions League final. At halftime, Unai Emery’s team was in control of the game and in control of the two-legged tie, and Liverpool — the overwhelming favorite — seemed to have had its confidence sapped and its rhythm broken. The fans, decked out in yellow and blue, smelled blood. They sensed a miracle.
It was not to be. After falling behind during an uncharacteristically sloppy first half in which it surrendered two goals, Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool was transformed in the second half, drawing the sting out of the crowd through a goal by Fabinho, effectively ending the tie through another by Luis Díaz, and securing a victory on the night, 3-2, through a third from Sadio Mané.
Just when it seemed to be in its grasp, Villarreal’s dream was snatched away. There was something cruel about that, but also something to be cherished. How much it hurt is, perhaps, the best measure of how close it came.
May 3, 2022, 4:52 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:52 p.m. ET
FULL TIME: Villarreal roars one last time for its team, but its Liverpool — 3-2 winners on the night and by 5-2 on aggregate — that will advance to its third final in five years. It will face the survivor of the other semifinal, Manchester City or Real Madrid. Those teams meet tomorrow at the Bernabeu, and we’ll be back for it.
May 3, 2022, 4:51 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:51 p.m. ET
90′ Two minutes of stoppage time, but this one’s been over for a while.
May 3, 2022, 4:48 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:48 p.m. ET
89′ Proving you can’t have everything in life, Liverpool manages to botch a five-on-two rush as Salah slips and fires wide.
May 3, 2022, 4:45 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:45 p.m. ET
86′ Capoue, who had two assists in the first half, gets his second yellow and he’s off. His night is Villarreal’s in microcosm: terrific early, then over in the blink of an eye.
May 3, 2022, 4:39 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:39 p.m. ET
It’s all come together for Liverpool, and fallen apart for Villarreal, in the last 15 minutes. This time it’s Keita, springing a lurking Mané from the halfway line. He races after a lead ball, Rulli arrives just too late to stop it, and Mané — alone — can walk it in.
That’s 5-2 on aggregate if you lost track in the flurry, and all that Villarreal optimism is long gone now.
May 3, 2022, 4:35 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:35 p.m. ET
74′ GOAL! Liverpool’s third from Mané comes after a goalkeeping blunder.
Credit…Pablo Morano/Reuters 
May 3, 2022, 4:34 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:34 p.m. ET
Just as it did in the first leg a week ago, Liverpool has changed the fabric of this tie in little more than a blink of an eye. Fabinho’s goal, at the end of a long, flowing move, capped a much improved start to the second half and restored Liverpool’s aggregate lead. Luis Díaz’s header, five minutes later, means Villarreal need to score twice again.
Diaz was a fitting scorer: His introduction at halftime, for the ineffectual Diogo Jota, has revived Liverpool. His directness and his energy have helped to force Villarreal back. His tendency to stay wide has helped Klopp’s team stretch the game. Just as important, though, is the fact that Thiago and Fabinho have finally been able to exert some control in midfield.
Villarreal will not give up hope, though, judging by the reaction to both goals. Rather than announce Fabinho’s name, as is traditional, the stadium announcer simply shouted: “Vamos Vamos Vamos Villarreal.” Emery’s team has 20 minutes to produce its second miracle of the evening.
May 3, 2022, 4:31 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:31 p.m. ET
Well that was fast. With the Estadio de la Cerámica still trying to process Fabinho’s goal, Luis Diaz slips behind Foyth to head in a cross from Alexander-Arnold for Liverpool’s second in five minutes. This one, like the last one, entered the net through Rulli’s legs.
Villarreal is in real trouble now, down by two goals on aggregate and feeling the effects of a pace and a pressure that they were most likely never going to be able to maintain for 90 minutes.
Liverpool will feel it has restored order. Neutrals will feel robbed of what was looking like a wild night.
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May 3, 2022, 4:27 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:27 p.m. ET
67′ GOAL! Liverpool gets a second through Diaz.
May 3, 2022, 4:25 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:25 p.m. ET
That was, as they say, coming for a while.
Liverpool gets on the board through the most unlikely of sources, Fabinho, but its goal on a low, driven shot is deserved. The Reds have been a different team in the second half: more aggressive, more threatening, more … everything.
Villarreal’s fans had seemed to sense trouble, booing during a long stretch of Liverpool possesion, and they were right. The goal came from nothing, really: Salah got the ball on the right and cut it back for Fabinho, who just walked into the area and fired hard and low at Rulli, who let it through his legs.
Up again by 3-2 on aggregate, Liverpool’s relief is palpable. Villarreal’s danger is real.
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May 3, 2022, 4:21 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:21 p.m. ET
62′ GOAL! Fabinho for Liverpool.
Credit…David Ramos/Getty Images
May 3, 2022, 4:15 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:15 p.m. ET
55′ Diaz, the quick-footed Colombian sub, is changing this game in real time: supremely dangerous, toying with Foyth. He looks like a goal waiting to happen, and it appears to be contagious: Alexander-Arnold just skipped a free kick onto the crossbar, and then drove in a menacing corner.
May 3, 2022, 4:11 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:11 p.m. ET
As good as Villarreal have been — totally and utterly transformed from last week — it cannot be stressed just how bad Liverpool have been.
Credit…Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
May 3, 2022, 4:08 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:08 p.m. ET
48′ Diaz is already causing trouble on the left, and now Keita wins a free kick. But Alexander-Arnold’s curling effort misses his teammate’s heads, and rolls weakly out of bounds.
May 3, 2022, 4:05 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 4:05 p.m. ET
46′ Klopp’s first change is an aggressive one: Luis Diaz comes on for Diogo Jota. He’s a different kind of forward, one who can beat defenders one on one and stretch spaces for Mané and Salah. Keita stays for now, but look for Jordan Henderson soon if Liverpool can’t get its midfield act together fast.
May 3, 2022, 3:57 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:57 p.m. ET
You can, ultimately, rely on the Champions League. A little less than an hour ago, Liverpool was sailing through to a third final in five years, its second leg with Villarreal really more of an administrative matter. Now, it finds itself trapped in a stadium bubbling with delirium, facing an opponent baring its teeth, and in the midst of its worst performance in months.
Jürgen Klopp’s team, ultimately, has been undone by Villarreal’s intensity, its purpose, its speed. Conceding an early goal to Boulaye Dia seemed to sap Liverpool’s certainty. In a way, given how easily and how cheaply Klopp’s players have ceded possession, it is something of a surprise that Villarreal had to wait until the 41st minute to find the second goal, through Francis Coquelin, that leveled the tie on aggregate.
Liverpool, now, has very little margin for error. Klopp has to find a way to give his team a more attacking edge and more control over possession, while simultaneously not giving Villarreal any more encouragement. Emery’s choice is much more simple. Does he go for the kill immediately, mirroring the speed with which his team started the first half. Or does he seek to frustrate Liverpool, and pick off its defense on the counterattack?
May 3, 2022, 3:54 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:54 p.m. ET
Villarreal’s hosting a Champions League semifinal — and needing only 45 minutes to put together an improbable comeback — brings to mind a dramatic night in the same stadium 16 years ago, and another against-the-odds run by the Spanish team, and another meeting with richer English opponents when they got there.
Arsenal was the British visitor in the semifinals back then, a night when only a last-minute missed penalty by Villarreal’s Juan Roman Riquelme prevented the game from going into extra time.
Arsenal escaped, earning its first (and only) trip to the Champions League final, where it lost to Barcelona in Paris.
This year’s final will be in Paris, too, but it’s suddenly less clear which of these teams will be going.
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May 3, 2022, 3:51 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:51 p.m. ET
Halftime: Phew. That was … something. But surely not the something most people expected.
May 3, 2022, 3:50 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:50 p.m. ET Villarreal’s Francis Coquelin celebrates after scoring their second goal.Credit…Pablo Morano/Reuters
The difference in Villarreal in the space of six days is really striking. Unai Emery’s approach at Anfield was understandable — his mission was, essentially, to remain in the tie — but it felt a little like a good plan, ineffectively executed.
Tonight his team looks wholly transformed. Francis Coquelin has been reinvented as a pulsing attacking midfielder. Giovani Lo Celso is a roaming playmaker. Boulaye Dia, a substitute last week, has left Ibrahima Konaté and Virgil van Dijk for dust more than once. Liverpool is struggling to cope, its midfield totally overrun, its passing frantic, and its composure evaporated.
In part that is doubtless because of home advantage, and in part it is because Villarreal has to attack. The main difference, though, may be the presence of Gerard Moreno, the Spain striker who was absent last week through injury. He may well not be fully fit for this evening. But his movement has created space for his teammates to exploit; his linkup play has made all of Villarreal’s disparate parts seem like a cogent whole.
May 3, 2022, 3:47 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:47 p.m. ET
Another bit of horrible, sleepy defending by Liverpool there, and it is costly.
A deep ball out of the back finds Capoue on the right, and he manages to butcher the control and then get it back with Robertson in pursuit. But he creates some space at the end line — far too easily if you’re Liverpool — and crosses in the direction of Coquelin in the center. He runs right past a flat-footed Alexander-Arnold and just like that, Villarreal leads by 2-0, and the aggregate is all square.
This has been a nightmare half for Liverpool, and they can’t get into the locker room fast enough.
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May 3, 2022, 3:43 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:43 p.m. ET
41′ GOAL!! VILLARREAL! And we’re even. Game really on now.
Credit…Pablo Morano/Reuters 
May 3, 2022, 3:42 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:42 p.m. ET
Penalty? Woof. It sure could have been there. Moreno slices through the back line and feeds Lo Celso, who crashes into Alisson as the ball arrives.
The crowd — and Villarreal — scream for a penalty but the referee, the Dutchman Danny Makkelie, very obviously waves away the foul, and the shouts, immediately.
Replays showed what looked like Lo Celso leaning in, looking for contact, and Alisson getting to the ball first anyway.
May 3, 2022, 3:33 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:33 p.m. ET
30′ Coquelin tries the diving move against Keita again, but our referee isn’t having it. “Get up, son,” he signals with a dismissive wave.
May 3, 2022, 3:27 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:27 p.m. ET
25′ Liverpool’s turn: They force the ball into the Villarreal box and Rulli blocks Mané. But he leaves the rebound free for a split second and Salah takes a stab at it just as he puts his hand on it. The referee blows the whistle, and awards Rulli the ball, but the latter is not real happy with Salah.
Credit…Jose Breton/Associated Press
May 3, 2022, 3:25 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:25 p.m. ET
22′ Lightning counterattack from Villarreal there just carved up Liverpool like a fresh cake: Albiol to Coquelin to Moreno. Liverpool’s back line scrambles back to break up the cross, but they’re all now yelling at the midfield something that appears to be along the lines of: “What the heck guys?”
May 3, 2022, 3:22 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:22 p.m. ET
19′ Two things we’ve already seen too much of in this game: Naby Keita looking shaky, and Coquelin diving to get calls. Liverpool will want both to stop. Villarreal? It’s probably fine with those.
Credit…Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
May 3, 2022, 3:18 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:18 p.m. ET Villarreal supporters brought umbrellas and their voices to the Estadio de la Cerámica.Credit…Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
There had been an oddly low-key feel to Villarreal for much of the afternoon; it might have been obvious from all the yellow and blue paraphernalia garlanding storefronts that there was a game on, but there has not been that sense of occasion that Champions League semifinals traditionally generate. This is, after all, a very small town; you might have heard. Also, and this cannot be stressed enough, it has been raining. It has been raining a lot.
The rain is still here, but there is nothing subdued about the Éstadio de la Céramica, and especially after the early goal. The announcer on the public address system had been talking about believing in comebacks. The fans had been chanting, “Si se puede! (Yes we can!)” For what may be the first time in its history, the club organized a pregame tifo, too, including an image of a blue submarine on a yellow background (rather than the other way around, which might have been more logical.)
Even now, Villarreal remains the outsider, of course, given Liverpool’s advantage from the first leg. But Unai Emery’s team clearly has no intention of going quietly.
May 3, 2022, 3:16 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:16 p.m. ET
14′ A first real rush, and a first real chance, for Liverpool, as Thiago rockets a shot over the crossbar. But the referee had blown play dead for a foul, and we come back the other way.
May 3, 2022, 3:15 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:15 p.m. ET
11′ Liverpool does look a bit shaken by that first goal, which was surely not what they wanted. Perhaps more important, though, Villarreal has fired up the stadium that was always going to be electric. And now it believes, too.
May 3, 2022, 3:13 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:13 p.m. ET
Villarreal are not quite such an outsider now ….
May 3, 2022, 3:08 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:08 p.m. ET
Well that was fast: Villarreal opened on the front foot and, spurred on by its home crowd, gets the dream start it wanted.
It began with a cross from Estupiñan on the left to Étáenne Capoue, who got in behind Andy Robertson at the back post. He tried to turn it on net (or was he crossing all the way?) but instead centered it, where Boulaye Dia hammered it past Alisson.
Wow. Dia started in place of the injured Arnaut Danjuma, but not even he could have pictured an opening salvo as good as that.
It’s 2-1 on aggregate, and Liverpool will have to work for every bit of this now.
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May 3, 2022, 3:06 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:06 p.m. ET
3′ VILLARREAL SCORES. Game on.
Credit…Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
May 3, 2022, 3:02 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 3:02 p.m. ET
We’re underway in Spain. Imagine Villarreal in yellow and Liverpool in red as you read along.
May 3, 2022, 2:57 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 2:57 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 2:53 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 2:53 p.m. ET Credit…Paul Ellis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Villarreal’s gem of a stadium, known for years locally as El Madrigal, actually carries the name of the town’s main export and a source of its billionaire owner Fernando Roig’s vast wealth: ceramics.
Roig is so proud of its connection to the industry that in 2017 Villarreal rebranded its matchbox-like arena Estadio de la Cerámica. One side of the 23,500-seat facility is dedicated to the craft, its facade laced with 2,000 square meters of locally produced yellow porcelain stoneware to mimic the team’s famous colors.
May 3, 2022, 2:42 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 2:42 p.m. ET Manager Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool are chasing four trophies this season.Credit…Jason Cairnduff/Action Images Via Reuters
Liverpool has adopted a familiar late-season slogan — one parroted for years by contenders and strugglers alike — entering today’s game at Villarreal: “Every game is a final now,” defender Trent Alexander-Arnold said this week.
He is not, technically, correct. But he’s not far off, either. Liverpool’s (nearly) unbeaten march through the Champions League has put it one game from the final in the tournament it and all superclubs hold above the rest.
How did it get here? The club has helpfully provided a map.
Six wins in six games in the group stage — against Porto and Milan and Atlético Madrid — and then a victories over Inter Milan and Benfica and against Villarreal, 2-0, in the first leg last week at Anfield. Liverpool is widely expected to finish the job on Tuesday, earning its third trip to the final in five year under Manager Jürgen Klopp.
But that’s just part of the task ahead: Liverpool is currently chasing an unprecedented British quadruple. It has already won the league cup, and will play in the F.A. Cup final at Wembley on May 14. It’s also one point behind Manchester City in the Premier League title race with four games to go.
So even if every game is not technically a final, it sure feels like that. That may be why Klopp is working hard to lower expectations.
“The schedule makes it really difficult,” he said in an interview over the weekend. “If you are not in a league like 20 points ahead — that’s not too important anymore. But for us, we have to go for everything in each game, and that makes it really unlikely.”
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May 3, 2022, 2:36 p.m. ET
May 3, 2022, 2:36 p.m. ET Villarreal celebrates after the UEFA Champions League quarter final, second leg soccer match between Bayern Munich.Credit…Friedemann Vogel/EPA, via Shutterstock
Villarreal, the tournament’s unlikely giant killer, advanced to the knockout rounds by finishing second in a group won by … wait for it … Manchester United. Yes, Manchester United was in this competition as a group winner a few months ago. Funny what a few months can do for the mood.
Funny, too, that no one told Villarreal they didn’t belong here with the heavyweights. First, it beat Juventus in the round of 16. Then it eliminated Bayern Munich — a pick of many to win the Champions League — in the quarterfinals.
Villarreal plays defensively because, let’s be honest, it is smart that it does. But it is a team that can score, too, and a dangerous one at times. Just ask Juve. Or Bayern.
And while Villarreal dug a hole for itself when it wasn’t able to hold back the Liverpool tide in the first leg — and while it is now beset by injuries to defender Raúl Albiol and striker Gerard Moreno that could not have come at a worse time — it is not, as Rory Smith wrote last week, a squad of seat-fillers and no-hopers.
Around a cadre of academy graduates — Gerard Moreno, Yeremi Pino, Alfonso Pedraza and, in particular, Pau Torres — Villarreal gives the impression of being something of a Premier League vintage store, its team stocked with faces vaguely familiar to cursory followers of English soccer.
There is Vicente Iborra, a 34-year-old midfielder who struggled to make an impact at Leicester City, and Pervis Estupiñán, the young Ecuadorean left back who noodled around the great Watford loan factory for a while.
Étienne Capoue, 33, spent six years at Vicarage Road, establishing himself as a rare constant on a Watford team defined by permanent change. Alberto Moreno was released on a free transfer by Liverpool. Francis Coquelin first emerged at Arsenal. Dani Parejo had a short spell at Queens Park Rangers. Arnaut Danjuma had flickered and sputtered at Bournemouth.
And then there is the Tottenham contingent: Juan Foyth, a defender who had lost his way; Serge Aurier, ditto; and Giovani Lo Celso, an extravagantly gifted midfielder who found himself out in the cold upon Antonio Conte’s arrival as manager at Spurs late last year.
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