It was Alisson who grabbed the headlines in the first leg. In the second, and decisively, it was the turn of Gianluigi Donnarumma.
His slightly and uncharacteristically weak-handed failure to keep out Harvey Elliott’s late smash-and-grabber in Paris sat uncomfortably alongside the assorted heroic escapades of Liverpool’s keeper, but the balance was redressed in spades on a gut-punch of a night for Liverpool as PSG scampered through 4-1 on penalties after 120 minutes of exhausting effort all round.
Liverpool were, predictably, far better than they had been six days earlier. And, indeed, better than they had been three days earlier. Roared into action, Liverpool offered more in the first three minutes – and specifically Mo Salah offered more in the first three minutes – here than in the entirety of that alarmingly lopsided first leg.
In a tie settled by minuscule margins, ‘What if?’ moments inevitably abound. But Liverpool’s most significant one may have come in those opening moments when a near-certain Salah goal was somehow diverted up and over by Nuno Mendes, his nemesis from last week.
PSG’s left-back may not have pocketed Salah so thoroughly here, but he was still on hand to thwart him in the end.
Had Liverpool doubled their lead in the tie early on, who knows what happens next. But it probably wouldn’t have been a defensive snafu and bungled clearance from Ibrahima Konate to allow Ousmane Dembele to extend his extraordinary goalscoring record this year yet further.
It was like a quickfire 12-minute precis of last week in reverse, PSG soaking up pressure and then scoring against the run of play. Liverpool couldn’t really grumble, and to their credit regained their composure swiftly enough in a raucously entertaining end-to-end first half at odds with that first instalment.
The thought occurs that PSG may never before have been a more entertaining team to watch. They have absolutely never been more of a team than they are now having at last stopped attempting galactico cosplay.
The second half was far more about the home side. They seemed to take great heart from a goal (rightly) disallowed for offside after the latest late flag in the history of late flags
A series of assorted saves and punches from Donnarumma kept Liverpool at bay along with plenty more last-ditch blocks – Khvicha Kvaratskhelia to deny Salah particularly. The Georgian may not have enjoyed such prominence in an attacking role here, but still made a decisive contribution.
Twenty or thirty minutes passed in a whirl of frustrations for Liverpool.
Luis Diaz should have shot first time after being played in by Salah.
A clear foul on Salah inches outside the area after a wonderfully weighted Trent Alexander-Arnold pass was missed by the referee and fell outside VAR’s remit by the barest of margins.
It was another frustrating Champions League night for Diogo Jota in a growing list, while Luis Diaz’s decision-making was at time maddening.
It felt like a Liverpool goal was coming, though. And then, by sheer happenstance, Donnarumma was stricken. The game stopped, the sting was taken out of it, PSG regrouped and Liverpool never quite regained that surging momentum they had possessed.
We genuinely don’t know what the solution is to goalkeepers feigning injury to break up play like this and allow their team some respite and a team-talk. Maybe we’ve gone soft. Maybe it doesn’t need a solution at all. Maybe it’s just good game management. We don’t really like it, though.
Donnarumma was miraculously healed soon enough, anyway, his major role in the night’s proceedings still to come.
Either side could have won it late in normal time, and neither had much energy to try and do so in an extra-time period that offered plenty of fuel for those who argue we should skip the extra half-hour and just go straight to penalties at the end of normal time. It certainly never came close to matching the quality of what had gone before.
Paris then won both tosses and took full advantage of the benefits of both going first in the shoot-out and having their ebullient fans behind the goal. But such was the contrasting calibre of spot-kick on display it’s hard to argue things would have been markedly different had Liverpool had more luck there.
Just as it’s hard to argue with the outcome based on the balance of play across the 210 minutes.
Vitinha just about won a battle of wits with Alisson, who was then reduced to a spectator by the three spot-kicks that followed, most notably that of Goncalo Ramos having been handed the high-pressure, high-stakes role of specialist 120th-minute substitute penalty-taker. It must be intolerable, but it didn’t show.
Salah thoroughly Salahed his penalty into the roof of the net with minimal fuss, but Darwin Nunez’s failure felt preordained somehow. It was a straightforward enough save once Donnarumma guessed right; the sort of penalty that really has no better than a 50-50 chance of success.
Curtis Jones’ was better. It wasn’t struck perfectly, but it was low and accurate. The agility required for Donnarumma to get down and keep the ball out with the same right hand that was questioned last week was impressive.
Further stiff challenges await PSG now, but they will be huge favourites against Aston Villa – and even huger against Club Brugge – in the quarters and really do look capable of ending their wait for success in the tournament that matters most to them.
As for Liverpool, a curious run-in to a still unexpectedly excellent season now awaits. Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Newcastle has, inevitably, just got tougher given the mental and physical toll taken here.
But that game is also now really Liverpool’s last truly meaningful competitive action of the season, with what’s left of the Premier League campaign after the international break little more than an extended victory lap.
There are very obviously worse problems to have than effectively having the title sewn up by mid-March but there is a sort of anti-climactic feel now that will only perhaps be punctured when Liverpool finally get to experience a Premier League trophy lift in front of fans. Which is still well over two months away.
