There is evidence from recent past that the margins can be desperately thin, even when you wear the world champions’ badge on your shirt and are the reigning elite of Europe’s elite.
When Liverpool needed victory here to progress in Europe against Napoli, 15 months ago, it required a feat of genius from their goalkeeper Alisson at the death.
This time they were served up something entirely different and devastating from the Brazilian’s understudy Adrian: a calamitous clearance which put them out of the Champions League.
Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson is adored by the Liverpool and Anfield faithful
The Reds’ skipper (middle) is a key link between his team and its supporters
That outcome will take some living with, and few of the Liverpool players seemed to be suffering more than their captain.
Before the game, the image of Henderson was, as ever, conspicuous by its absence around the streets of Anfield. A few stalls were selling a scarf bearing his name and the lyrics ‘Here’s to you Jordan Henderson’ — sung to the tune of Mrs Robinson — ‘Jurgen loves you more than you will know.’ But you needed to go looking.
For a very long time after he joined the club, positive sentiment was hard to find, too. Because Henderson has never passed a ball like Steven Gerrard, never tackled like Graeme Souness. When Gerrard stepped away as captain they hung a giant board outside the Centenary Stand stating that, ‘Once in a generation a player comes along for whom nothing seems impossible.’ The notion of that applying to Henderson has seemed faint in the five years since.
Henderson appeals to Klopp, though, because he conforms so completely to his work ethic and if ever there were a night for his proletarian dependability at the heartbeat of the team, then this was it. Faced with the most treacherous balancing act — the need to forge ahead and create while keeping the door closed at the back — Klopp assigned Henderson optimal responsibility.
Jurgen Klopp’s use of Henderson (second right) gave him the task of shielding the defence
His deployment of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, in Fabinho’s place, to enhance the firepower left Henderson alone to shield the defence, with Gini Wijnaldum also freed to chase and press. The task required inestimable watchfulness in a player who had been missing since sustaining a hamstring injury in the first leg in Madrid.
The possibility of being unpicked at any moment — the misplaced pass or unchecked run which would be the undoing of them — stalked Liverpool. Diego Simeone’s decision to field Diego Costa and the Portuguese prodigy Joao Felix, missing in Madrid, compounded their counter- attacking threat.
Henderson, the hinge of the team, was an unfailing sentry, tracking right and left to cover, and he was the one demanding possession, too; calling for it, signalling for it with palms out, looking for ways to spread and switch and set his team off.
In the Atletico Madrid defeat, Henderson covered a lot of ground despite recent injuries
‘We need better switches, braver football in different moments, to play around the formation, behind the formation, play through the gaps,’ Klopp had said on the eve of this examination. Henderson was the one who sought to pick up the pace and inject the necessary acceleration.
It did not help that the tension weighed heavy in that first period for the players up ahead of him. There was still a clunkiness about Trent Alexander-Arnold, who had lost the battle with opposite number Renan Lodi down Liverpool’s right in Madrid.
Henderson’s 30 yard diagonal for Sadio Mane on the half hour was immaculate, though the forward was outmuscled. Liverpool’s chances were speculative, edge-of-the-box efforts from Mohamed Salah and Oxlade-Chamberlain until the breakthrough came through Wijnaldum and the roof came off Anfield.
Liverpool had held 71 per cent possession in the match but Felix lurked like a demon, bursting through on to a long ball to bring a save from Adrian on the hour.
Even when Liverpool led, the stadium was beset by anxiety and becalmed by its own high standards, aware of the perils of the finely poised tie when the late away goal is terminal.
The midfielder’s passing – both long and short range – is a key asset for Liverpool
It was Henderson’s key pass that started the move where Andy Robertson (R) hit the crossbar
Liverpool were denied their usual range of possibilities by a shrewd Spanish rearguard, which denied Andy Robertson and Alexander-Arnold the usual space to attack the flanks and deliver their metronomic crosses.
Alexander-Arnold simply could not get in sight of the Madrid goal and his excursions towards the byline were terribly limited. Robertson had only marginally more success. Henderson did as much as any to find gaps in the cloak of black shirts.
It was he who picked up the pace in the teeming rain of the second half, his short pass locating Oxlade-Chamberlain who brought a sharp save from Jan Oblak. It was he who began the move, left-to-right, 20 yards out, which culminated in Salah delivering the cross which Robertson headed against the bar.
When extra time came, Henderson led the on-field exhortations but it was not to be. This one was beyond him.