Real Madrid ended Tuesday night with a thumping victory over Liverpool, but after 15 minutes, it looked barely conceivable. After Darwin Nunez’s flicked Los Blancos into the lead, Thibaut Courtois committed an uncharacteristic error to give Liverpool a two-goal lead.
Following another error by Alisson Becker at the opposite end, Courtois’ mistake will be lost in the future, but the Belgian still addressed it after the match.
After Dani Carvajal headed off the danger by looping a pass to Courtois, the Real Madrid goalkeeper was caught in two minds in front of Mohamed Salah, as he explained to Marca.
“The truth is that it was a bit of bad luck screwing it up like that, I controlled it well and at first I wanted to pass it, but I saw that Salah was standing still and I said well, I’ll pass it to the right, but it bounces off my knee. The goal from Vini makes us breathe and then Alisson does the same, and we are strong on the counter.”
Courtois has been in and out of the side this season, suffering from injury issues ahead of the World Cup. Perhaps part of the fact that Barcelona are so far ahead in La Liga can be explained by the absence of Courtois’ heroics. In this case, it almost looks fortunate that a rare mistake is unlikely to have a material impact on their season.
