Arne Slot looks to lessons of Champions League history as Liverpool chart new way forward | OneFootball

They are the captain and manager of a team who won the Premier League last year and who have made a 100 per cent start to the current season, but, as Virgil van Dijk and Arne Slot reminisced, it was about Champions League setbacks. Perhaps that is the mentality of winners: that they remember the defeats more than the wins. As they prepare for another continental campaign, the two Dutchmen can recall losing to Atletico Madrid.

Liverpool’s last game as Champions League holders came against Diego Simeone’s team. It was an end in more ways than one, the final game in a packed Anfield before Covid intervened. Liverpool lost 3-2. “It was a painful one,” said Van Dijk. “We got knocked out.”

As Atletico return to Anfield, Slot thought back to his last meeting with a club who, he noted unprompted, have reached two Champions League finals in Simeone’s tenure. Feyenoord are among the continental underdogs. “The last time I faced them, I still wake up thinking at nights about [Antoine] Griezmann and how good he was,” said Slot. “We lost 3-1. The good thing is now I have players who can do similar things that Griezmann can do.”

He was catapulted into a different orbit when he traded Rotterdam for Merseyside. He won his first seven Champions League matches with Liverpool. Nevertheless, the game Slot mentions most from his tenure at Anfield is one they lost: first over 90 minutes then, as a tie, over 210 on penalties, to Paris Saint-Germain. Having won in the Parc des Princes, when cruising to the English title, Liverpool began the night arguably as favourites for the European crown. They ended it out.

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Liverpool suffered defeat to eventual champions Paris Saint-Germain at Anfield last season (AFP via Getty Images)

“I think Luis Enrique said the team who is going to win the play-off will win the tournament and he was right,” said Slot. “We were the only team who could bring them to extra-time and the only team who could bring them to penalties. If you go out, I prefer to go out to the team who wins it.”

Which Liverpool did. They were left in the paradoxical position of being the best team in part of the Champions League and yet exiting the competition in the last 16. Much as Slot remains awed by the standard of the second leg at Anfield, it has irritated him that Liverpool's reward for topping the inaugural league table was to face a PSG side who had come 15th and navigated a play-off round.

His feelings about the format have changed. “If you ask me this question after we lost to Paris Saint-Germain, I would say forget about the first eight games and now I use my brains more and say don’t judge the format after one year, don’t judge the new format on one time, judge it on three or four. Maybe the No 1 in the league table three times will have a favourable draw,” he said. “This whole league table doesn’t give the real opinion on who is good and who isn’t.”

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Liverpool’s Champions League defeat to PSG weighed heavily on Arne Slot’s mind (REUTERS)

There are nevertheless advantages to appearing near its summit. Liverpool’s start last year felt a statement. So did their summer activity in the transfer market. They were Europe’s biggest spenders, which could propel them into the status of Champions League favourites. The most expensive buy in the game this summer, Alexander Isak, is in line for a debut after his £125m move. “I can say it is 100 per cent sure he will not play 90 minutes,” said Slot, taking the patient approach. That Atletico are without their premier striker, the injured Julian Alvarez, could afford Liverpool an advantage.

Expenditure can be a sign of ambition. In Liverpool’s first full season after buying Van Dijk and Alisson, they were Champions League winners. Now the roll call of arrivals includes Isak, Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong.

“I think it is only a compliment that people tell everyone we have spent so much because that tells you the players we brought in are seen as very good players,” said Slot. “I think we did great business.”

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Diego Simeone has fonder memories of the sides' 2020 Champions League knockout meeting (Getty Images)

One element of it frustrates him: some of the coverage. “There’s so much focus on our new signings, especially pundits who favour, not us, but some other clubs in the country that cannot stop talking about £450m, I repeat £450m, I repeat £450m but they always forget the £300m that we’ve sold for,” he explained. The amount Liverpool have recouped is nearer £260m, even including Harvey Elliott, whose loan to Aston Villa has not yet been turned into a permanent deal, but it is still a lot.

It was Elliott who gave Liverpool their first-leg win over PSG last season, the goal that could have set them on the road to glory. Instead, it merely set the stage for the Parisians’ triumph at Anfield. And so it is a diminishing band who know what it is like to win the Champions League for Liverpool: with Trent Alexander-Arnold decamping to Real Madrid, it is now only Andy Robertson, Mohamed Salah, Joe Gomez, Alisson and Van Dijk.

The Dutchman could yet join the select group of Liverpool’s European Cup-winning captains. He may have two more attempts. “When I signed my deal I would hope to win everything that I’m going to participate in, but it doesn’t work like that unfortunately because you face so many great teams,” he said. “But going into the start of this campaign I’m confident that we can show Europe that we are a fantastic team.” Which they were when they won it in 2019, but also when Atletico knocked them out in 2020 and when PSG eliminated them in March.