Sonic the Hedgehog rescues Liverpool and ruins Villarreal’s big night

“You suffer and then ...”, Jürgen Klopp clicked his fingers: “... you react.”

It may not have been quite that simple, nor quite so instantaneous, and it certainly wasn’t as effortless as that, but as it turned out Liverpool’s manager wasn’t far off in his prediction.

Oh, they had suffered, that was for sure, and they had reacted too. Not so much a click of the fingers, perhaps, as a fist on the red button. A decision too, made in the dressing room at half-time: life is different with Luis Díaz, not least because he is different. And so when it all started up again, there he was. They had needed him.

When the half-time whistle went, the Cerámica rose and started to chant: “Yes, we can!” It wasn’t the first time they had done – those words had appeared every so often from the very start – but this time they really meant it: 2-0 up on the night, the aggregate score 2-2 and the game in their grip, Villarreal were on the cusp of something special, another absurd achievement for the team that the Super League would have left behind and that had dignified the Champions League like no one else.

Juventus, Bayern ... and Liverpool? Those three clubs have 14 European Cups between them. Villarreal didn’t even have a final, but it was closer now than it had ever been, a roll call of the continent’s biggest clubs defeated en route. Only, much as Liverpool were two goals down for the first time, they weren’t defeated yet and, as Unai Emery had warned, this is a side that can hurt you a thousand ways.

“There is no perfect script,” Pau Torres had said, but there was and this was it, better even than they had planned, still less dared to believe.

Maybe it was too good? “I look at Villarreal and think: ‘What would I do?’ Two-nil down,