Philippe Coutinho’s first ever hattrick in a Liverpool shirt saw the Reds through to the knockout stage of the Champions League.
Liverpool defeated Russian outfit, Spartak Moscow 7-0, with further goals from Sadio Mane, who scored twice, Roberto Firmino, and Mohamed Salah.
The Reds needed a draw to qualify, with a win ensuring they emerged as group winners. But Jurgen Klopp’s side went on to put on a memorable show at Anfield, totally outclassing their visitors, and leaving their German manager surprised.
“With my assistants, I was sitting outside when it was 6-0 and we were looking at each other and thought, ‘wow, how did that happen?,” Klopp said after the game.
He added: “No, it was not easy. It was not easy. I didn’t see a lot of teams losing 7-0, but even when it was 3-0, 4-0 and 5-0 they still played football, they still had their moments, they still had scoring situations somehow.”
Liverpool’s win means this is the first time in the history of the CL that a country will have five teams in the round of 16 .
The Reds join Manchester United, Manchester City, and Tottenham as teams who won their groups, while Chelsea emerged as runners-up in group C.
In the other group E game, Maribor and Sevilla played out a 1-1 draw, which was enough to see the Spanish side through to the next round.
In group F, Manchester City suffered their first loss of the season, as they were defeated 2-1 by Shakhtar Donetsk.
City were already through to the knockout phase as group winners, but Shakhtar needed the win, which saw them join Pep Guardiola’s side in the next phase of the competition in second place.
Napoli drop to the Europa League, after falling 2-1 to already eliminated Dutch champions, Feyenoord.
Porto joined Besiktas as the teams who made it to the round of 16 in group G, following an emphatic 5-2 defeat of Monaco.
Porto were in a battle for second with CL newbies, RB Leipzig, but the Germans fell to 2-1 to group winners Besiktas at home, while Porto tore Monaco apart to book a place in Monday’s draw.
Finally, Tottenham and Real Madrid ended their group stage on a high, with both sides picking up wins against Apoel and Borussia Dortmund respectively.
Both teams had already picked the two tickets in group H, but on the final match day of the group stage, Spurs defeated Apoel 3-0, while Real were made to work hard before winning 3-2 against Dortmund.
