Liverpool beat Ajax 2-1 on Tuesday in the second day of the Champions League thanks to a late goal from Joel Matip, a result that served to calm the situation momentarily at Anfield after the lopsided 4-1 defeat to Napoli in the first day.
Mohamed Salah opened the scoring (17) and Mohammed Kudus (27) scored a great goal that helped equalize the game. Despite the many chances for the Reds, the winning goal is slow in coming, with a corner shot by Matip in the last minutes (89).
Colombian striker Luis Díaz was a regular for Liverpool and played a fairly acceptable game.
The Reds thus get the first points this year in the Champions League and draw at 3 with the Dutch and provisionally with Napoli.
The Italians will play their second key A game on Wednesday at Rangers Glasgow, postponed by 24 hours due to “serious setbacks in terms of police and organizational resources linked to national mourning” following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The first few minutes started with local dominance and a quarter of an hour into the match, a long pass from Alisson found the forwards, who after two passes left Salah alone in front of veteran goalkeeper Remko Pasveer, who couldn’t do anything to prevent the goal (17).
Luis Díaz (21) and Diogo Jota (22) managed to double the score with powerful shots from the edge of the area that went wide.
When Liverpool gave their best, Steven Berghuis made a magnificent run down the back line and filtered a pass into the heart of the red area for Ghanaian Mohammed Kudus, who turned and sent the ball with a powerful shot on the left corner to equalize the game (27).
– Many occasions, little success –
Liverpool weren’t intimidated after the cold water pitcher and minutes later, a new long range shot by Trent Alexander-Arnold went over the crossbar (31).
Pasveer emerged as Ajax’s hero in the minutes that followed, blocking a corner kick from Van Dijk (35) and a new double chance from Alexander-Arnold (41).
In the second half the Reds continue to dominate, threatening from the locker room another great shot by Jota (45) and a good chance by Salah and Elliott (64).
Given the lack of effectiveness, Klopp decided to entrust the Uruguayan Darwin Núñez, a great signing last season, and the Brazilian Roberto Firmino to take advantage of his good form and experience in this type of scenario.
Ajax also sought the goal and a header from Daley Blind (74) was about to give the Dutch the lead.
Núñez has a good chance but his low shot went wide to the left of the goal (82). In a subsequent action, the Uruguayan wanted to get in touch with Díaz but once again Pasveer intervened to prevent the Colombian’s goal (86).
When the game seemed destined for an equalizer, Joel Matip emerged as a hero (89), heading to the back of the net one of ten corners that the team led by Jurgen Klopp had had.
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