Arne Slot highlighted six potential Champions League winners following Liverpool’s heartbreaking elimination at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain.
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The Premier League leaders appeared well-positioned to progress to the quarter-finals after securing a 1-0 victory in the first leg of their last-16 tie against PSG. ..Continue Reading
Despite being second-best for much of the match at Parc des Princes, a phenomenal performance by Alisson Becker kept PSG at bay before Harvey Elliott delivered a dramatic late winner.
Anfield was expected to play a decisive role in the return leg, but PSG forced the tie into penalties after Ousmane Dembele scored the only goal in regular time.
Gianluigi Donnarumma then made crucial saves against Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones, securing PSG’s 4-1 shootout victory.
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PSG is now set to face another Premier League team in the quarter-finals if Aston Villa can maintain their 3-1 first-leg advantage over Club Brugge.
Meanwhile, Arsenal looks poised for the next round following their dominant 7-1 win against PSV, and Madrid rivals Real and Atletico are narrowly separated by one goal heading into their second leg.
On the opposite side of the draw, Bayern Munich is paired against Inter Milan, while Barcelona will meet either Borussia Dortmund or Lille after comfortably defeating Benfica.
Slot, however, stopped short of calling PSG the favorites, emphasizing that five other teams also have a strong shot at claiming the Champions League title.
‘No, I wouldn’t say they are favourites,’ Slot told Amazon Prime Video. ‘You know how much I like this team and how impressive they were last week and today.
‘It is not easy to play over here in these circumstances when we are so aggressive but they were able to get the win over the line.
‘This is a very good team, but there are many good teams still in the competition.
‘Normally you face these teams in the semi-final and the final but unfortunately we had to face Paris Saint-Germain, one of the richest clubs in the world, already in this round.
‘They can win it, they can, but unfortunately for them they’re not the only team that can win it. And it’s always about two games so luck and bad luck can play a part as well.’
When asked who he rated as the favourites, Slot added: ‘I haven’t played all of them.
‘I like Barcelona at the moment a lot as well, Arsenal has a very good team, Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Bayern Munich is impressive. So it’s going to be close, like it was tonight.’
Slot said Tuesday’s Champions League defeat to PSG was the ‘best game of football I’ve ever been involved in’ and praised his team for their ‘incredible’ display.
‘It was the best game of football I have ever been involved in,’ Jurgen Klopp’s successor at Anfield said.
‘It was an incredible performance, especially if you compare it with last week. Maybe we ran out of luck because the margins were so small.
‘We played the perfect game, except for scoring a goal. It was similar to Paris last week, when they played the perfect game and didn’t score. And then in extra time, they were maybe a little bit better.’
Virgil van Dijk added: ‘We were pretty good and you want to go as far as possible, but we knew when we drew Paris that it was going to be very difficult.
‘In Paris, we struggled but we won. Today we saw a very good Liverpool side, but we’re out of the competition.’
