Asked by a Belgian journalist whether he thought Standard Liège deserve to play in the Champions League, the Liverpool manager began to open a can of worms with regard to Michel Platini's plans to reform the competition to benefit clubs from smaller countries.
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Perhaps this is a more sensitive issue at Anfield than elsewhere. Under Platini's presidency, Uefa has changed the format for next season's Champions League, with the champions of Turkey and Ukraine, among others, assured direct passage to the group stage while the fourth-placed clubs in England, Italy and Spain and third-placed clubs in France and Germany are likely to face each other in the third qualifying round. Had the changes been introduced this season, rather than next, Liverpool may have found themselves slugging it out with Fiorentina, Seville, Marseilles or Schalke 04 for a place in the group stage, rather than Standard, the less fancied champions of Belgium.
Platini's aim is to broaden the appeal of the Champions League, which in recent years has been dominated by the giants of English, Italian and Spanish football, and, as such, it is not only those who accuse him of Anglophobia who will suspect that he will be rooting for Standard at Anfield tonight. Laszlo Boloni, the Standard coach, said yesterday that "if we somehow manage to get through, it will rank as the biggest shock by a Belgian side in Europe for 40 years", yet Benítez is taking nothing for granted, having conceded that his team have been flattered by victory in their opening two Barclays Premier League matches, away to Sunderland and at home to Middlesbrough, and even more so by their draw in Liège a fortnight ago.
Standard looked like a very decent team in the first leg, with Liverpool seemingly taken aback by the muscular aggression of Dieumerci Mbokani and Igor De Camargo in the opposing attack and the poise of Wilfried Dalmat and Axel Witsel in midfield. "We were lucky," Benítez admitted yesterday. "They had a goal disallowed and they missed a penalty and we did not create any chances. They are well organised, they have good players and they have quality. If you talk about the other teams we have faced in Champions League qualifiers in the last years, then they are the best."
This last statement may be a little worrying for Liverpool's supporters, given that Graz AK and CSKA Sofia won 1-0 at Anfield at this stage in 2004 and 2005 respectively, albeit having lost the first leg on their own ground. It seems implausible in one sense that Liverpool could slip up, but Benítez concedes that while his team have won their opening two Premier League matches, they can hardly claim to be firing on all cylinders, with the much-hyped strike partnership of Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane yet to ignite.
Steven Gerrard, the captain, suggested that the first leg against Standard had served as a "kick up the backside" and that the return to the squad of Javier Mascherano, Lucas Leiva and Ryan Babel, who had been representing their countries at the Olympic Games, would make a "big difference". But of those three players, only Babel is eligible for tonight's game, with Benítez having omitted the two midfield players from the squad for the qualifying round on the basis that they were likely to stay in Beijing longest (which they did, with Mascherano picking up a gold medal with Argentina and Lucas a bronze with Brazil).
This gamble was partly based on the need to accommodate more English players — or at least "locally trained" players — in the 25-man squad under Uefa's new quota system. One way or the other, it seems that Uefa is putting the squeeze on Liverpool, although Benítez knows that there can be no excuse this evening for the kind of upset that would play into Platini's hands.