Move On To Group Stage

23 Aug, 2005 Liverpool 0-1 CSKA Sofia

BBC: Liverpool lost in Europe for the first time in 15 matches but still beat CSKA Sofia 3-2 on aggregate to reach the group stage of the Champions League.

Gerrard was out injured. Carragher, Alonso, Garcia, Reina and Zenden were all rested. Riise was finally included in the starting eleven, and he did almost score for Liverpool! Morientes, Sissoko and Cisse all got some perfect chances while missed. Josemi played as central back, and to be honest, that's was really horrible for our defense! I thought we could lose another ball!

Benitez: "It is difficult to explain how we could have had so many chances and not scored, but I felt the strikers tried very hard and on another night could have had two or three."
"At the end we had the quality and to qualify was really the only thing that mattered."