Real Madrid versus Liverpool. It is a meeting that evokes great memories from the European Cup’s archives. It’s Alan Kennedy charging through a packed defence to crash home a late winner in the 1981 final in Paris (“the unlikely man again!”). It’s Steven Gerrard and Fernardo Torres producing a masterclass on a pulsating Anfield night in 2009. It’s Gareth Bale stepping off the bench to hit a stunning overhead kick beyond the hapless Loris Karius in the 2018 final in Kyiv.
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And rather less memorably, it’s the strange night in 2014 when Brendan Rodgers caused surprise, bemusement and anger by fielding a weakened Liverpool line-up ahead of an important Premier League game against Chelsea. AS, the Madrid-based sports newspaper, called it “a crime against the club’s history” while Gary Lineker said the selection was “unbefitting of a club of Liverpool’s stature”. It is fair to say that Gerrard, who was one of those simmering with frustration on the touchline, had some pretty strong views on Rodgers’ selection too.
From being within touching distance of that long-awaited Premier League title the previous April, only to falter agonisingly in the final weeks of the campaign and lose out to Manchester City, Liverpool had been brought down to earth with a painful bump.
Luis Suarez had left for Barcelona and the opening months of the new season had raised concerns about the wisdom of investing more than £110 million on the combined talents of Javier Manquillo, Dejan Lovren, Alberto Moreno, Emre Can, Adam Lallana, Lazar Markovic, Mario Balotelli and Ricky Lambert. The team that had played with such verve and confidence during the previous season’s title challenge had given way to a team that looked short of cohesion, personality, flair and, crucially, in the absence of Suarez and the injured Daniel Sturridge, goals.
They were back in the Champions League for the first time since 2009-10, but a stuttering victory over Ludogorets at Anfield, thanks to a stoppage-time penalty from Gerrard, was followed by a poor 1-0 defeat away to Basel. Then came a comprehensive 3-0 loss at home to Real, with Toni Kroos, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema outstanding for Carlo Ancelotti’s team.
At the halfway stage in Group B, Liverpool were locked in a three-way fight with Ludogorets and Basel for second place behind Real. Of greater concern, though, was their poor start in the Premier League, where they were toiling in seventh place at the start of November, 12 points adrift of leaders Chelsea, after Newcastle United inflicted their fourth defeat in the opening 10 matches. As Rodgers said after the 1-0 loss at St James Park, “It’s not working for us at the moment.”
The first hint of what lay ahead came on the Monday lunchtime when, intriguingly, Marca, the other big Madrid-based sports paper, published a story claiming Liverpool were going to field a much-changed line-up, with Rodgers deciding to prioritise the game against Chelsea four days later. Hugo Cerezo, the Marca journalist, confidently stated that Gerrard and Raheem Sterling would be among those rested while Javier Manquillo, Lucas Leiva, Lallana and Fabio Borini would start.
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Cerezo’s story gained surprisingly little traction. Rodgers was not questioned about his team selection in the official pre-match news conference, but a few minutes later, away from the television cameras and the radio microphones, the visiting journalists from Merseyside had their opportunity to ask the Liverpool manager whether he was really considering resting Gerrard for a match — and an occasion — of this magnitude. Wouldn’t that represent a huge gamble for a manager whose position was coming under growing scrutiny?
“I don’t see it as a gamble,” Rodgers said. “This week — and these games against the likes of Real Madrid — I see as a great opportunity for the squad. You put them out there and you put your trust in them to perform. In Steven’s case, if he is playing (against Chelsea) on Saturday, I have to look at what is the priority for him and us. If he played against Newcastle and didn’t play (against Real), you could say that was the priority.
“He and I have spoken about that. Three big games: Newcastle, Madrid and then Chelsea. I need to look at a number of players to look at the games we want them to play in. But I have also got to look at (the fact) we brought in other players. And there is responsibility. But there is no doubt our priorities are the Premier League and the Champions League — and always in that order.”
He went on. “That’s not being pragmatic. It’s why you have a squad to come and get results. I see that we have spent an awful lot of money on players to come in and give them an opportunity to perform. If at the end of this cycle of games they haven’t performed, they can never say they haven’t been given a chance. For me, whether it’s Real Madrid, Newcastle or Chelsea, all I will do as the manager is give them that opportunity to perform.
“We have three high-level games in a week and I have to think about that in preparation for the weekend. I also understand that we have to have a team that can come here and win. And that is what we want to do.”
It wasn’t just Gerrard. The morning newspapers suggested Sterling was also to drop down to the bench along with new signing Lovren, who back then was regarded as Liverpool’s most reliable central defender.
Match day was full of rumours filtering out of the Liverpool team hotel via a variety of sources. At one point there was a whisper that Brad Jones might play in goal. Balotelli was either in or out, depending on who you listened to. There were so many claims and counter-claims that some began to wonder whether the Liverpool camp were trying to send misinformation out there to confuse the opposition — even if it was hard to imagine Carlo Ancelotti and his Real team being greatly concerned about who lined up against them.
It wasn’t just the rumours regarding the personnel. It was conspiracy theories too. Was Rodgers trying to flex his muscles with Gerrard and Sterling over their new contract negotiations? Was he trying to send out the message that no player was bigger than the team?
Some even speculated privately whether Rodgers might be playing a much more dangerous game, throwing players such as Can, Markovic and Manquillo in at the deep end to expose the shortcomings of the club’s transfer committee, which was much questioned at the time. It was the type of scheme that might be suspected of a manager such as Jose Mourinho or Rafa Benitez at a time of political turmoil and power struggles, but it really didn’t seem like Rodgers’ style.
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Ultimately, Rodgers’ explanation seemed broadly accurate, even if he appeared to have downplayed one critical factor. His selection seemed to be driven by Liverpool’s slow start in both the Premier League, where the battle for a top-four finish was already looking problematic, and the Champions League, where their best hope of qualifying for the knockout stages lay in their final two games — away to Ludogorets and at home to Basel — rather than trying to get something from the Bernabeu.
And that question of prioritising the Premier League and the Champions League — “always in that order”? That merely reflected the objectives of the club’s owners, for whom qualification seemed so important from a financial viewpoint. Of course they wanted, if possible, a long run in the competition. But not if it came at the expense of qualification for the following season’s tournament. That is the thing about the Champions League; it has created a culture where for many clubs qualification has become an end in itself, rather than a means to an end.
It was a week of surprising decisions at Liverpool and one of those benefited Jack Dunn, a 19-year-old academy player.
“I was just coming back to fitness and wasn’t even expecting to go,” Dunn tells The Athletic. “I didn’t see any value in me going but the manager thought it would be a good experience for me. When you get an injury you aren’t up in the lights, you are kind of down because you are isolated most of the time. Mike Marsh (former first-team coach) was the one who said, ‘You are coming with us’. I was thinking ‘Why?’ I had only just returned to training but it was a goodwill gesture. It showed how much they cared and thought of me to take me with them. What was most special for me was the day before the game, getting to train at the Bernabeu. That was special. The pitch was on another level. Even the grass was premium.”
The call-up also meant Dunn was around the first team when Rodgers’ line-up was announced to the squad. “When you’ve got players like that and you drop them against a team that you don’t usually drop your best players for, you do wonder why,” he says. “But you put your trust in the manager. Even though he dropped the core players, the team he put out still managed to do really well.
“Even with decisions like that which people don’t agree with, that group was the kind to just get on with it. And obviously someone like Gerrard isn’t going to go out and start mouthing off because that’s not who he was. He led by example.”
By the time the line-ups were published on UEFA’s media channel an hour before kick-off, it was merely a case of confirming what most of the visiting journalists already knew.
There were seven changes from the line-up at Newcastle, with Glen Johnson, Lovren, Gerrard, Jordan Henderson, Philippe Coutinho, Sterling and Balotelli replaced by Manquillo, Kolo Toure, Lucas, Can, Lallana, Markovic and Borini. Most of those changes looked like downgrades and it was hard to persuade yourself that the selections of Mignolet, Martin Skrtel, Alberto Moreno and Joe Allen, the four players retained in the starting XI, represented huge votes of confidence. It looked like a League Cup line-up rather than a team to trouble Sergio Ramos, Luka Modric, Kroos, Benzema, Ronaldo et al.
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In the press box, high up in the Bernabeu, journalists debated whether Rodgers had lost the plot entirely or whether there was a healthy dollop of method behind this supposed act of madness. Gerrard, for instance, had looked like he needed a rest rather than play three games in eight days. And maybe at this stage of his career, at the age of 34, an evening chasing shadows at the Bernabeu — because that was all that anyone really expected of the team beaten by Newcastle three days earlier — was something to be spared if it would mean he was refreshed and ready to go against Chelsea at Anfield.
Lucas Navarette, who is chief editor of Real Madrid-focused website Managing Madrid, was among those with a press pass. For all of the talk beforehand, Navarette still felt surprised when seeing a physical copy of the teamsheet.
“I expected some minor rotations from Rodgers considering that they were about to face Chelsea,” he says. “The fact that Real Madrid had put in a brilliant performance en route to a statement 3-0 win at Anfield a few weeks prior to this game — that probably helped Rodgers in making his decision. In the end, the game was very slow and dull. Real Madrid knew they were probably going to win it as soon as they saw Liverpool’s XI.”
Whether Madrid’s first team felt that way or not, the players coming into Liverpool’s team had something to prove. That, too, could be useful in a game of this type. It was just that Toure, Lucas, Can, Markovic and Borini had made just seven Premier League starts between them since the season began. Other than two League Cup ties, Toure had played just one minute of football for Liverpool since the previous February. The whole thing seemed to smack of damage limitation — if not in terms of the result then in terms of the physical and indeed the possible psychological impact on the team.
Gary Lineker was among those who were most vociferous in their criticism. “Rodgers has left out Henderson, Sterling, Balotelli, Gerrard and Coutinho at Real Madrid,” the former Barcelona and England forward and now Match of the Day presenter, tweeted. “He has, though, thrown in a white towel.”
Lineker added, “Selecting a weakened side in Europe’s premier competition, especially against Real Madrid, is unbefitting of a club of Liverpool’s stature” and “If I were one of Liverpool’s star players, I’d be choked to be left out of a game at the Bernabeu against the European Champions”.
There was also a stinging rebuke from former Liverpool forward Michael Robinson, who became a prominent and successful television pundit in Spain after a spell at Osasuna. “Incredible starting XI for Liverpool,” he tweeted. “It’s one thing to give players rest — and another thing not to respect the contest. I think Rodgers has made a mistake. Thousands of Liverpool fans have come to the Bernabeu to see five key players on the bench. Brendan Rodgers has waved the white flag of surrender before the game has started.”
Barely three minutes had gone when James Rodriguez, on the edge of the penalty area, sent Mignolet sprawling to his left to make a good save. A few minutes later Skrtel lost the ball to Benzema in a dangerous position, resulting in a chance for Ronaldo, whose shot was well saved by Mignolet. It looked like it was going to be a long night for Liverpool.
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They stabilised, though, with Lucas holding the midfield together and Can offering some long-awaited glimpses of the potential that had persuaded Liverpool to sign him from Bayer Leverkusen. They were measured in possession, never sending more than a handful of players forward in support of the isolated Borini, but it was more encouraging than some of the doom-laden pre-match predictions had suggested. Toure was enjoying his return to the big stage, outmuscling Benzema and then embarking on an unlikely run down the left-hand side. “Joe Allen had a really good game and Kolo Toure was the standout,” recalls Dunn.
The inevitable Real breakthrough came, though, when Isco exchanged passes with Ronaldo to create space for Marcelo deep in Liverpool territory. Marcelo’s cross was perfectly weighted, enabling Benzema to peel away from Toure and score at the far post. The floodgates were open. Now it seemed only a question of how many Real would score.
It didn’t work out like that. Ronaldo had a free kick punched away by Mignolet, while Toure raced back to nick the ball from Benzema after a defence-splitting pass from Raphael Varane, but Liverpool kept them at arm’s length for the most part. The problem for Rodgers’ team was at the other end, where Markovic and Borini struggled to make the slightest impact on the rare occasions the ball reached them. The half-time statistics told the story; Real had mustered 13 goal attempts, Liverpool none.
The pre-match and half-time music at the Bernabeu is not what you expect. There’s a lot of Van Halen, a fair old sprinkling of Bryan Adams. There’s always a bit of Dire Straits. At half-time that night they played “Money For Nothing”. Rather than wonder whether someone was having a joke at their expense — all that money spent on flights, hotels, match tickets and cerveza… for this — the Liverpool fans got into it. They certainly enjoyed a rendition of Van Halen’s “Jump”.
The ITV commentary team suggested we would see Gerrard, Sterling and Coutinho sooner rather than later. But the second half began with no changes. Twelve minutes after the restart Liverpool had a shot — a tame one from Moreno, which was saved by Iker Casillas. That was the start of a minor purple patch for Rodgers’ team. Or a mauve patch, at least. Lallana turned sharply and sent a shot wide of the far post. Borini had a free kick deflected wide. For a very brief period, Liverpool looked the better team.
The cavalry arrived on 69 minutes, Gerrard and Sterling replacing Lucas and the ineffective Markovic. Gerrard’s arrival elicited respectful applause from the home crowd. Coutinho came on for Emre Can soon afterwards. And the strange thing was that, rather than prove the catalyst for an unlikely equaliser, those changes seemed to take the momentum out of Liverpool’s play just at the time they had been getting on top. For the remainder of the game, Real dominated possession and had 10 shots, their opponents none. It finished 1-0 and the overriding feeling was that Liverpool had got what they came for — a modicum of respectability in defeat.
There was no outburst of anger or frustration from the away fans at the final whistle. In fact, there was applause for the players, along with defiant chants of “We Love You Liverpool, We Do”. Rodgers’ team selection would be debated in the bars around the Bernabeu afterwards, but among most of the travelling supporters, there was a measure of understanding of the thinking behind it.
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As Pearl Murphy, an Anfield regular, recalls: “I can remember everybody saying, ‘He’s crazy, he’s dropped all these players’. But I can remember saying, ‘Well, they all played at Newcastle on Saturday and they were rubbish!’ So I didn’t blame him.”
Murphy has been travelling to watch Liverpool play in European away games since the UEFA Cup semi-final first leg against Barcelona in 2001. She had flown out to Madrid from Stansted airport with her daughter Anna, turning the game into a three-day trip, with her brother and nephew joining them for the game. It was an investment that had not been rewarded with seeing Liverpool’s finest going all-out at the Bernabeu but still she could see the logic.
“Everyone was a bit taken aback,” she says. “Most people thought he had done the wrong thing. But I can remember feeling like, ‘Well, if they can’t beat Newcastle then why do we think they can beat Real Madrid?'”
The debate was more frenzied elsewhere, though — in the television studios, on the radio phone-ins, in the newspapers and of course on social media. Perhaps the most extreme criticism of Rodgers came in the Spanish media. Marcos Lopez, in Marca, wrote that “without any English players in the starting line-up Liverpool were devoid of intensity and passion and greatly damaged their reputation”. Alfredo Relano, in AS, wrote, “Giving up on the result from the moment of team selection was a crime against his club’s history.”
The questions kept coming for Rodgers, not just in the various post-match flash interviews with and the post-match press conference in Madrid but in his media engagements ahead of the Chelsea game later in the week. “I knew what I was doing,” he kept saying. “I would never pick a team that I believed couldn’t get a result from a game.”
They hadn’t got a result. But would a more recognisable line-up, in indifferent form, have got a better result? It was doubtful. And their Champions League fate was still in their own hands — and Gerrard, Sterling and Coutinho should be fitter and fresher to face Chelsea on Saturday. And they, too, might have a point to prove. It could just work.
It didn’t, though. With Johnson, Lovren, Henderson, Gerrard, Coutinho and Sterling restored to the starting line-up against Chelsea four days later, they took an early lead, but they were beaten 2-1. That was the third in a run of four consecutive defeats which darkened the mood at Anfield still further. A place in the Champions League knockout stage was still there for the taking, but they drew 2-2 away to Ludogorets and then drew their final group game at home to Basel. Their return to the Champions League stage, after a five-year absence, had been a profound disappointment and their plight in the Premier League suggested they might not be back in a hurry.
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The established narrative is that Rodgers blew it with his team selection in Madrid. It is something of a red herring. Liverpool lost both games against Real, but what really cost them was taking just one point from their two matches against Basel and conceding an 88th-minute equaliser against Ludogorets in Sofia. As Rodgers conceded after the draw with Basel, they didn’t do anything like enough across the six games. “We haven’t been good enough,” he said.
The real cost of that night in Madrid only became clear later. Gerrard’s contract negotiations were at an extremely delicate stage, as were Sterling’s, and the disappointment of being left out of the startling line-up against Real festered for both players. Sterling would almost certainly have left for Manchester City anyway — not just for more money, as some suggested, but for the opportunity to compete for the biggest honours immediately in a stronger team — but Gerrard said it was a turning point.
“That was the night, tucked away in the depths of a dugout at the Bernabeu, when my disappointment ran so deep, I almost made up my mind it was time for a change,” Gerrard said in the autobiography he released after leaving Liverpool for LA Galaxy at the end of that season. “If Brendan’s managing of my games meant that I would miss playing against Real, it seemed as if I had seen the end. How could I go on playing for Liverpool another year if these were the kind of empty nights that awaited me? My career would never be the same again.”
Neither would Rodgers’ tenure at Liverpool; he would preside over a strong recovery over the winter months and survive the season and a difficult summer, but he departed the following October, replaced by Jurgen Klopp, and the rest is history.
It is tempting to see that night in Madrid as the beginning of the end for Rodgers at Liverpool, but, looking back, it seemed like a strange night in a campaign when Champions League football had come too soon for the club.
Less than four years later, following a spectacular ascent under Klopp, they were taking on Real in the final in Kyiv. A year after that came Champions League glory, Premier League glory and now, at the business end of what has been a challenging, frustrating season, another encounter with the Spanish giants. This time, at the quarter-final stage, the stakes are so much higher for both clubs.
(Top photo: Gonzalo Arroyo Moreno/Getty Images)