Liverpool slumped to a 0 – 2 Champions League defeat away to Red Star Belgrade on Tuesday night.
After beating PSG 3 – 2 in their Group C opener, last year’s finalists looked set to qualify easily. Now, Liverpool might not make the knockout stages after an electric display from Red Star Belgrade.
For Belgrade, it is their first win in the Champions League, bar qualifiers, since they were defending champions in 1992.
Two quick goals from striker Milan Pavkov were enough to win the game for Red Star, and Liverpool surrendered meekly.
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The first goal came in the 22nd minute. Pavkov met a corner from the right with a powerful header to open the scoring. If you could forgive the Liverpool defence for that, you couldn’t for the second goal.
Red Star’s second goal was one of those odd goals that was both brilliant yet should never have been allowed. From an attacking perspective it was brilliant, but from a defensive perspective it was calamitous.
Red Star intercepted Liverpool in midfield and the ball fell to Pavkov, who drove towards the box. Starting from 40 yards out, he shrugged off Georginio Wijnaldum easily as Van Dijk and Joël Matip retreated.
Pavkov unleashed an unstoppable drive into the top corner from 25 yards to double the lead. Alisson could perhaps have done better, but it was a wonderful strike from Pavkov.
Despite Liverpool applying unerring pressure in the second half, they never looked threatening. Red Star Belgrade dug in for a landmark victory and threw Group C into uncertainty.
Liverpool are joint top with Napoli on 6 points and just behind them are PSG on 5 points. Liverpool have games away to Paris and at home to Napoli still to come. They will need to win both those games to stand a chance of qualifying from the group.
They are still joint favorites to win the group with PSG at 6/4. Meanwhile, Napoli could upset a few at 11/5 to win the group after drawing with PSG on Tuesday.
