Thibaut Courtois and Alisson Becker make howlers in Champions League thriller between Liverpool and Real Madrid

With the squads of Liverpool and Real Madrid littered with some of the best players in world football, it’s no surprise that the giants shared four goals between them in an enthralling opening 45 minutes of Champions League football at Anfield. What no one would have expected, though, is that half of those goals would come from dreadful goalkeeping blunders.

Ad With a place in the quarter-finals at stake, Liverpool made a dream start to the first leg when, in the fourth minute, Darwin Nunez opened the scoring in terrific fashion, flicking the ball past Courtois from close range. World CupMartinez hits out at 'fake news' and says bust-up reports will fire up Belgium30/11/2022 AT 19:06 It quickly went from the sublime to the ridiculous 10 minutes later when Thibaut Courtois – who was Player of the Match when these sides met in the 2022 final – tried to deal with a back pass only for the ball to bobble off his knee, leaving Mohamed Salah with a tap-in.

«It's a terrible error,» said BT Sport commentator Darren Fletcher. «It's an absolute gift.» The goal made Salah Liverpool's all-time leading scorer in European football with 42 strikes.

The game took another twist when Vinicius Jr rifled a terrific shot into the top corner to halve the deficit to silence the home supporters at Anfield. But they had seen nothing yet, as eight minutes before half-time, Los Blancos were gifted an equaliser when Alisson Becker inexplicably played a pass straight at Vinicius Jr and the ball looped into the air before hitting the back of the net.