“I remember him sending his staff to investigate our training. Liverpool prepare to face Toulouse in the Europa League at Anfield on Thursday night (8pm BST).The Reds are looking to win Group E for the third consecutive time and take a step towards the knockout stages of the competition. And Jurgen Klopp will insist his side do not underestimate the French side. Although Liverpool are favorites to win the match as they face Toulouse for the third time in the club’s history. The first and only meeting between the two took place in the third qualifying round of the Champions League in the 2007–08 season, with United winning 5–0 on aggregate. Rafa Benitez’s side won the first leg 1-0 at the Municipal Stadium thanks to Andrey Voronin’s long-range goal, before winning 4-0 at Anfield. Late braces from Peter Crouch, Sami Hypia and Dirk Cute completed the victory. 15 years ago football was very different from today. Significant improvements in technology and research platforms have given Klopp and his backroom staff access to every Toulouse match played this season and the previous campaign.But that was something Benitez could not cope with. He had to try to understand how the Occitania team played without players like Wyscout.Eli Baup was responsible for Les Violets. Former Toulouse coaches have revealed how they discovered Benitez sent members of Liverpool’s coaching staff to spy on the France international. This is similar to the infamous Marcelo Bielsa saga when Leeds managers caught United watching derby training. Information “The person who saw him was Alain Casanova and I remember he was a Spaniard who was following an opponent of Benítez’s staff.”They didn’t know us very well, they didn’t know what to expect, so Benitez and Liverpool sent him to find information while they were hiding.” I was impressed by Benitez’s professionalism. “It was an honor to see someone like that on stage who didn’t miss a beat, and honestly, I’ve never seen that before.”
The Liverpool team included football legends such as Steven Gerrard, Xabi Alonso, Fernando Torres, Javier Mascherano, Jamie Carragher and Pepe Reina. That season they reached the semi-finals of the Champions League and finished fourth in the Premier League. In an interview, Baub said: “I remember the atmosphere in the stadium very well. We played successfully, losing 1-0. I saw Reyna in goal again, she was a great goalkeeper. It was a one-sided game there, but we played a serious game in the stadium in the middle of August in the heat. We got this crazy goal from Voronin from distance.
Otherwise, Duchez won’t have much to do. “I mainly focused on controlling the midfielders as much as possible. We also talk about Steven Gerrard, Xabi Alonso and Javier Mascherano! (laugh). They were great people. We had a solid mid, our usual mid of Diuse, Emana and Siriex. The idea was then to propose solutions in the hallway together with Jeremy Mathieu and Albin Ebondo. In that game I scored more tries and more crosses than them. The aim of the game was to create hazards by avoiding them compared to their properties.
