Anfield has a special way of turning pressure into noise. The lights come on, the crowd leans forward, and somehow the script finds a twist—if you believe Liverpool are due one more miracle.
That’s basically the feeling Dejan Lovren tapped into as he marked the 10-year anniversary of his decisive goal against Borussia Dortmund. The former Reds defender sent a message to the club ahead of Liverpool’s second leg against PSG, tying his own memory to what the current team is about to attempt.
Lovren spent six years at Liverpool between 2014 and 2020, but the headline moment of his Reds story landed during his second season. Liverpool trailed Dortmund 4-2 on aggregate with just 25 minutes of the Europa League quarter-final second leg remaining, and then Philippe Coutinho and Mamadou Sakho changed everything by levelling the tie.
Back then, the away goals rule was still in place in Europe, which meant Dortmund would have advanced had it ended 4-4 on aggregate—because they’d scored three times at Anfield. Instead, Liverpool pushed it into stoppage time. And that’s when Lovren rose highest, heading the ball home in front of the Kop, sending the stadium into that unmistakable kind of frenzy.
It’s funny how football nostalgia can be debated at full volume. Many fans will argue the Barcelona comeback in 2019 edges the Dortmund game as Jurgen Klopp’s most memorable European night at Anfield—but the Dortmund tie is still firmly among the most dramatic chapters in Liverpool history. Lovren clearly remembers it the same way: in his words, the lights, the noise, and the roar felt like a scene you can’t really shake off.
Ahead of Liverpool trying to pull off another comeback against PSG at Anfield today, Lovren took to social media to mark the milestone. “10 years ago today, I lived every boy’s dream in a Red shirt,” he wrote. He then described scoring against Borussia Dortmund in the Europa League at Anfield — “the lights, the noise, the Kop roaring as we fought back in one of the greatest European nights this club has ever seen.”
He added that the moment, the goal, and the Liverpool shirt are “etched in my soul forever,” still giving him goosebumps, and he finished with thanks to teammates and fans, plus a “Good luck tonight LFC. BELIEVE!” As someone typed that from a phone later in the day—screen glow, maybe a faint buzz from the device—thinking about how goosebumps can be the same both times, ten years apart, but the same Anfield charge.
Now the question is whether that same feeling can show up again. Liverpool are targeting an unlikely comeback after losing last week’s first leg 2-0. Misryoum newsroom reporting highlights that PSG should have won by a larger margin, but profligate finishing from the French side means Arne Slot’s men can go into today’s game with genuine hope of pulling off another memorable Anfield night.
There are also the quiet reminders that sit beside the drama. Both sets of players will wear black armbands during the game, while a minute’s silence will also be observed prior to kickoff in memory of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster. And with that, the focus sharpens back on football—on the kind of comeback Lovren once described like something every boy dreams of, only this time the story is being written by a new group of players, under a familiar roar.
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