Carlo Ancelotti pays Liverpool huge compliment after Real Madrid thrashing

Carlo Ancelotti believes Liverpool remain a ‘fantastic team’ despite suffering a sobering loss to Real Madrid.

The Reds suffered yet another defeat to the Spanish giants at Anfield as they’re on the verge of crashing out of the Champions League.

Having been beaten in the 2018 and 2022 finals by Los Blancos, Jurgen Klopp’s side were thrashed 5-2 at Anfield in the last-16 first leg on Tuesday night.

That’s despite goals from Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah putting Liverpool in the driving seat after just 14 minutes. The Reds imploded, however, with Vinicius Jr and Karim Benzema both at the double while Eder Militao bagged the decisive finish.

It means Klopp’s troops face an almost-impossible task in the return clash at the Santiago Bernabeu next month as they have to win by four clear goals due to the away-goal rule.

Ancelotti admitted that he set his Real team up differently to the 1-0 victory over Liverpool in Paris last May. And although the Reds have underwhelmed this campaign - they sit just eighth in the Premier League - the Madrid boss still rated them highly.

Ancelotti said: “I have to say, honestly, Liverpool is still a fantastic team in my opinion because they are able to still play with the intensity that is difficult to find. Liverpool didn’t change - our strategy was different for sure.

“We planned to play a different game from the final. The final was a low block and try to play on the counter attack. Tonight was a bit different.”

Despite Madrid being in what seems an insurmountable position, Ancelotti has vowed the tie is not over.

He said: “This is only the first part of a knockout tie, it's gone our way, but we'll need to imagine that in the second leg we'll have to suffer and work hard.

“Obviously we didn't expect to start like we did but at 2-0 down I thought about the City away leg last year in the hope that we could do the same - but it turned out even better.

“They were doing us damage down our left but when we were better in our attacks, we moved Valverde a little bit towards that danger and we then defended better.

“Liverpool is a great team which made us suffer in the first half so I'd say that, unfortunately, this tie isn't finished. No way.”