{"id":665569,"date":"2026-03-18T23:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/665569\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T23:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:56:12","slug":"arne-slot-hails-fans-backing-of-almost-perfect-liverpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/665569\/","title":{"rendered":"Arne Slot hails fans&#8217; backing of &#8216;almost-perfect&#8217; Liverpool"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"authors byline-authors\">\n<li class=\"single-author mugshot-shown\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1773878172_510_lindop_beth.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/>\n<p>Beth LindopMar 18, 2026, 07:42 PM ET<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a><\/p>\n<ul>Based in Liverpool, Beth Lindop is ESPN&#8217;s Liverpool correspondent and also covers the WSL and UWCL.<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Multiple Authors<\/p>\n<p>LIVERPOOL, England &#8212; Arne Slot has described <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"a47fbcec-c948-cf4c-9e41-3dfa37588c9c\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=364\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Liverpool<\/a> &#8216;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/report\/_\/gameId\/401862668\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">4-0 win<\/a> over <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"5b23d52e-b1ae-2e88-5263-936f59c03912\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=432\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Galatasaray<\/a> as &#8220;almost the perfect game&#8221; and hailed the fans at Anfield for delivering a special atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p>The Reds overturned a 1-0 first leg deficit in their round-of-16 tie with a dominant performance against the Turkish Super Lig champions, with goals from <a data-player-guid=\"fab1b006-532b-8133-de47-647e95a46877\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/257206\/dominik-szoboszlai\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dominik Szoboszlai<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"266fab4f-4b99-384e-8dd4-833b3d1d1367\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/304901\/hugo-ekitike\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hugo Ekitike<\/a>, <a data-player-guid=\"5517b92d-e379-7c93-3885-ca2b3f49f7bb\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/274632\/ryan-gravenberch\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ryan Gravenberch<\/a> and <a data-player-guid=\"49438d5e-de32-9f1b-9aab-5f6ae53f14d0\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/173896\/mohamed-salah\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mohamed Salah<\/a> securing their passage to the quarterfinals of the <a data-league-guid=\"da52796f-2621-3351-8e77-955da92ea82d\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/league\/_\/name\/UEFA.CHAMPIONS\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UEFA Champions League<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/story\/_\/id\/48185530\/uefa-champions-league-live-updates-liverpool-galatasaray-atletico-madrid-tottenham-bayern-atalanta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Champions League recap: Liverpool, Atleti and Bayern advance with ease<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It was a raucous atmosphere on Merseyside as Liverpool supporters rallied behind their team, despite having booed Slot and his players after Sunday&#8217;s 1-1 draw with <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"f987a4b2-f3f9-e7f6-eb7d-eda43893be5a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/soccer\/team?id=367\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tottenham Hotspur<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From start to finish, I think we played the game I was hoping for, the players were hoping for and I was hoping for,&#8221; Slot said. &#8220;Not only did we play the perfect game from start to finish but out fans did as well.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\" lazyload lazyload\" data-image-container=\".inline-photo\" height=\"320\" width=\"570\"\/>Arne Slot applauds Liverpool fans following his team&#8217;s win over Galatasaray.\u00a0Molly Darlington\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;From the start they were not accepting what we thought would happen and what happened which is that they would create a situation where the energy would run out of the stadium by making sure there was not much playing time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our fans reacted great to that and our players kept on going. There was a great dynamic between fans and players and almost the perfect game from us and definitely from our fans.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Slot also heaped praise on Salah, who bounced back from missing a penalty in the first half to score his 50th goal in the Champions League, becoming the first African player to achieve the feat.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It says a lot about him that after you miss a penalty just before halftime, that can sometimes be hard for an individual or for a team, so compliments for the team for how we came out in the second half,&#8221; Slot said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Because we have had a lot of setbacks this season, a lot of first halves or second halves where we have created chance after chance after chance without doing justice to how we have performed &#8212; so not scoring.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And then Mo and the team came out in the second half the way they did, so he assisted Hugo, a great assist and then scored a trademark goal that he has scored so many times in this stadium and for this club, cutting inside, finding the corner.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So that tells you a lot about his mental strength but definitely also of the team, because adversity is something we can definitely talk about in this season.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Salah was replaced by <a data-player-guid=\"c9ad2796-537e-c93b-4f14-1b323d48644a\" href=\"http:\/\/espn.com\/soccer\/player\/_\/id\/249524\/cody-gakpo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cody Gakpo<\/a> in the 74th minute, receiving a standing ovation from the fans at Anfield.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Injury-wise, he came off not because he had scored enough but because he felt something,&#8221; Slot said. &#8220;So let&#8217;s see where he is for the weekend and afterwards.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beth LindopMar 18, 2026, 07:42 PM ET Close Based in Liverpool, Beth Lindop is ESPN&#8217;s Liverpool correspondent and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":665570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-665569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-soccer","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116252887405518531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}