Breaking down Alisson’s goalkeeping masterclass for Liverpool against PSG

In the 2022 Champions League final, Liverpool dominated Real Madrid but were denied by an unforgettable performance from goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois. On Wednesday night, in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool experienced the joy of being on the other side.

This time, it was Liverpool that benefited from a goalkeeping masterclass as Alisson produced a breathtaking display. Without him, Liverpool’s chances in the knockout rounds of this year’s competition could have expired immediately.

In total, Alisson faced 27 shots and saved nine of them, four of those stops coming against a red-hot Khvicha Kvaratskhelia. The Brazilian also denied the in-form Ousmane Dembele and fellow Frenchman Desire Doue twice to lead his team to a 1-0 victory, despite Liverpool having only one shot on target. At times, Alisson was the only thing standing in the way of Liverpool getting completely run over.

But his influence didn’t stop between the posts. In the build-up to Harvey Elliott’s 87th-minute winner, it was Alisson who initiated the attack, launching a pinpoint long ball to Darwin Nunez, who set up Elliott for the decisive goal.

The two saves to focus on from Wednesday’s display are his spectacular reflex save from Kvaratskhelia in the 37th minute and his full-extension stop from Doue in the 80th. Both saves revealed the full breadth of Alisson’s skill set and why he is so difficult to beat when at his best, yet they share a key similarity: they both perfectly showcased the essential connection a goalkeeper must have with his defenders to achieve success.

Arguably his best save of the night came on the chance from Kvaratskhelia.

With the ball at the Georgia international’s feet on the left wing and six players in line with or behind the ball, the beginning of this move looks harmless. Though Bradley Barcola is to his left, Liverpool have it covered from all angles. There is seemingly no way past.

Then, in a split second, Kvaratskhelia magnificently weaves between two defenders before cutting inside and pushing the ball to his right. Suddenly, he is one-on-one with Ibrahima Konate.

In theory, Alisson wants his defenders to push the attacker outside and wide of the goal because it makes his angle a bit easier, makes the area of the goal he has to cover smaller, and helps make the play more predictable. However, that is easier said than done.

What makes Kvaratskhelia so difficult to defend against is his speed and quickness with the ball at his feet. His close control gives the illusion to the defender that he is under control and has time and space to slow the attacker down. Then, just as the defender feels that comfort, Kvaratskhelia takes a bigger touch and explodes into space.

Luckily for Liverpool, Konate was attentive and kept an eye on the play unfolding in front of him. Sensing the danger Kvaratskhelia possessed, he quickly adjusted his footwork and tried to close the space as quickly as possible.

As Kvaratskhelia feinted and cut inside, Alisson stood tall and attentively followed the play in front of him, taking two shuffle steps to his left and quickly getting set in the middle of his goal in preparation for the shot.

It is important for goalkeepers to have strong relationships with the players ahead of them. As the only position on the pitch that can see everything, they are vital when it comes to orchestrating the positioning of their defenders, especially in instances of danger.

An example of this can be seen in the sport of handball when a defender can effectively cover one post to help the ’keeper and make the area of the goal he has to cover significantly smaller. This can apply to football, too, and in these instances, it is vital that defenders avoid crossing the goalkeeper’s line of the shot when possible and block the side of the goal closest to them. In this instance, that would mean Konate would block the first post, allowing Alisson to cover the far post.

When Kvaratskhelia pulled his foot back, Alisson stood balanced with his body weight forward and his hands around waist height, attentively awaiting the shot.

When you look at the picture below, you see that Alisson’s right foot (which is his loading foot when you dive left) was already planted on the ground, while his left foot was slightly in the air as he prepared to take a step to his left and toward the ball. You can also see that his body weight was slightly leaning to his left as he was anticipating the ball to the far post as it came off Kvaratskhelia’s foot.

In a last-ditch effort to block the shot, Konate lunged in with his right foot, inadvertently leaving his near post exposed. This gave Kvaratskhelia just enough space to fire a shot on target, leaving Alisson vulnerable. While a defender’s intentions to block the ball by stretching himself at a vital moment are understandable, it actually becomes a hindrance for the goalkeeper.

Alisson was aware that even though the far post was his responsibility, he needed to be ready for anything. Should he cheat and go early, he knew he risked letting in an easy goal should something unexpected happen.

As the ball took a slight deflection off Konate’s foot and headed back in the direction he had just come from, he reacted superbly — digging his left foot into the ground to regain balance, reset his stance, and generate the power needed to change direction and throw himself towards the ball.

It wasn’t until the ball was only a few yards away that Alisson was able to instinctively tuck his right leg underneath him, creating the space necessary for his right hand to explode towards the ball and produce a stunning save.

The difficulty of this stop is hard to overstate — pushing off the back leg with such speed and force in the direction he had just come from, especially after a deflection, is incredibly difficult. By all logic, he had no business reaching the ball, let alone with enough power to push it to safety. Losing even a fraction of a second to the deflection should have made the save impossible.

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On Alisson’s full-extension stop against Doue, it was his relationship with his back line and midfielders, in particular Wataru Endo, that encouraged him to take up a central position in goal and anticipate the ball’s path toward the back post to make a spectacular save late in the match and with the score 0-0. It also perfectly demonstrated how seamless the connection between a goalkeeper and his defenders can be when executed to perfection.

As Doue cut inside and started to challenge Trent Alexander-Arnold one-on-one, Alisson was initially positioned at his near post and in position to handle the next action should Doue go around Alexander-Arnold on the outside to set up a cutback or cut in for a shot on goal.

Once Doue continued his dribble and changed direction to his right, it became clear that he was more interested in taking the shot himself.

When he cut inside, this was the signal for Endo, as the midfielder who had come over to help Alexander-Arnold, to close the space as fast as possible while also keeping the player in front of him.

As Doue further drifted inside and lifted his leg back to shoot, Alisson took a few more small shuffles to his left before setting just off centre in his goal.

Unlike Kvaratskhelia’s attempt, when Konate tried lunging in to block the shot, this time Endo did an excellent job of closing the space but also keeping his chest and body square to the ball (avoiding the natural tendency to turn away from the shot) while also resisting the urge to lunge. That would have created an opening for the attacker to shoot and expose an area of the goal Alisson expects to be blocked. Endo was therefore able to block a big part of the goal: the half of it to Alisson’s right.

This afforded Alisson the luxury of being able to use his momentum, as he moved across the box from right to left and continued towards the back post to throw himself and make the save instead of having to set and push off back in the direction he just came from.

Already in the optimum position, Alisson loaded the power on his right foot, took a strong power step to his left and attacked the ball at a forward angle. He met the shot, got two hands firmly behind the ball and used the momentum and spin already on the ball to push it around the post and out for a corner kick.

These kinds of saves — delivered in the most pivotal moments when the game’s outcome hangs in the balance — have become almost routine for Liverpool since Alisson’s arrival in the summer of 2018. Time and again, when his team has needed a big stop, often in the defining moments of a season, he has been there.

Speaking to TNT after the match, Liverpool manager Arne Slot was rightly full of praise for his goalkeeper.

“I don’t think I’ve worked with a goalkeeper at this level, which is normal because he’s the best in the world,” Slot said. “I’ve had some very good players as a manager, but I’ve never had the best goalkeeper in the world and that’s what he is. He showed that today.”

When Liverpool last won the Champions League, in 2019, Alisson’s crucial late save against Napoli in the final group game proved to be a defining moment. Without it, they wouldn’t have even made it out of the group stage, let alone gone on to lift the trophy.

On Wednesday, Liverpool may have experienced another such moment. While no single save stood out quite like that one against Napoli, the sheer magnitude of Alisson’s overall performance was undeniable. As he put it himself, it was “probably the best performance of my life”.

(Top photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images)