Liverpool’s Champions League hopes took a hammering against Real Madrid.
Darwin Nunez put Jurgen Klopp’s side ahead after just five minutes’ play with a smart heel flick to meet a Mohamed Salah cutback from the right-hand side.
Provided turned poacher 10 minutes later as the Reds doubled their lead when Thibaut Courtois gifted the Egyptian possession with a weak clearance.
But the visitors were handed a lifeline midway through the first half through Vinicius Jr unleashing a sublime curling strike inside The Kop’s penalty area.
The reigning holders drew level after Alisson’s clearance from a hasty Joe Gomez back-pass allowed Vinicius to score again with a looping deflection.
Los Blancos took the lead shortly after the interval from slapstick defending by their hosts which allowed Eder Militao to convert a Luka Modric free kick.
Karim Benzema inflicted further misery on Liverpool by extending the visitors’ advantage with a shot that took a deflection off Gomez to wrongfoot Alisson.
The current Ballon d’Or holder doubled his tally from a ruthless 67th-minute counter attack by Madrid as he was teed up for a simple finish by Vinicius.
Here were the key talking points from Anfield:
Ancelotti still has the Reds’ number
Exactly two years since he last tasted victory at Anfield, during a fleeting spell as Everton manager, Carlo Ancelotti was doing what he invariably does best.
Jurgen Klopp knew that friend, and briefly foe across Stanley Park, had a hex over Liverpool suffering just two defeats from his previous 11 games in all competitions.
But the venerable Real Madrid boss took things to another level entirely during his side’s rematch of last season’s close-run Champions League final.
To say this was a schooling by the reigning European holders would be an understatement; they absolutely pulverised the Reds in Tuesday’s last-16 tie.
Anfield has never witnessed such an emphatic defeat as Vinicius Jr became the youngest visiting player to score twice in a continental game since Johan Cruyff in 1966.
An evening that began in a different record-breaking fashion saw Darwin Nunez score Liverpool’s fastest-ever Champions League goal on home soil.
Mohamed Salah eclipsing Steven Gerrard’s haul of 41 goals to become the Reds’ leading scorer in European competitions appeared a further boon.
That, however, proved to be a good as it got and Madrid gradually began to turn the screw before romping to five goals in just three-quarters of an hour.
Elimination in three weeks’ time at the Bernabeu appears all but a certainty after such a whimpering display from Klopp’s former ‘mentality monsters’.
Anfield’s UEFA ire isn’t going away
Liverpool fans were expected to make their feelings known to UEFA after last week’s publication of the independent report into the Champions League final.
Findings in the 200-dossier levelled ‘primary responsibility’ at the door of European football’s governing body for the chaos in Paris nine months ago.
Their flagship anthem had been roundly booed in the group stages but it was drowned out by the disdain of a 50,000-strong home crowd before kick-off.
Banners paraded at the foot of The Kop condemned UEFA as ‘liars’ following their attempted mistruth about the delayed start inside the Stade de France.
Accompanying chants of ‘F*** UEFA’ reverberated from the famous terrace and around the stadium as a whole ahead of a mid-game demonstration.
Kopites unfurled further missives late in the first half against both the Nyon-based executives and the French authorities for their part in the scandal.
Much as both parties would hope that it happens, Anfield’s anger over what happened in Paris at the end of last season is not going away anytime soon.
Gomez exposed on the biggest stage
If Klopp thought belatedly watching back last May’s defeat to Madrid was ‘proper torture’, he may need to leave it a little while longer to digest this one.
Joe Gomez’s 73-minute outing punctuated Liverpool’s rapid collapse with a hat-trick of defensive mishaps which helped derail their early dominiance.
Pinned back by Vinicius Jr, the 25-year-old hit a hasty back-pass which Alisson cleared straight into the advancing Brazilian for a deflected equaliser.
Gomez’s concession of a free kick early in the second half was compounded by failing to track his runner as Eder Militao scored from the ensuing free kick.
Although he could do little about the unfortunate deflection that saw Benzema opening his account in the game, it compounded a truly forgettable ordeal.
By the time a hamstring injury drew Gomez’s chastening night to its overdue end, it felt almost like an act of humanity for the struggling centre-back.
His place as third-choice partner for Virgil van Dijk in the Anfield backline, behind Joel Matip and Ibrahima Konate, typifies his struggles since 2015.
Never before, however, had they played out in this fashion and certainly not on the biggest stage against the Champions League’s perennial favourites.