Diogo Jota ran riot on this day in 2020, scoring a hat-trick as Liverpool swept Atalanta aside 5-0 in Bergamo.
Jota was on target again in a 2-0 win over ten-man Atlético Madrid at Anfield in 2021, three players were sent off in a wild night at Valencia in 1998, and Bob Paisley’s side blew Trabzonspor away inside 20 minutes in 1976.
2020: Jota runs riot in Bergamo
Jürgen Klopp picked Jota ahead of Roberto Firmino for the Champions League trip to Italy, and the Portuguese forward repaid him in style. After 16 minutes he ran on to Trent Alexander-Arnold’s pass and dinked the ball over the goalkeeper, and before half-time he brought down Joe Gomez’s long ball and lashed it in at the near post.
Liverpool scored three more in the first nine minutes of the second half. Mohamed Salah ran clear from Curtis Jones’s pass to make it 3-0, Sadio Mané clipped in the fourth from Salah’s ball, and on 54 minutes Jota took Mané’s pass, rounded the goalkeeper and rolled the ball into an empty net.
It was the fourth game in a row in which Jota had scored, and the win gave Klopp’s side maximum points from their first three group games. Jota died alongside his brother André Silva in July 2025. His hat-trick in Bergamo remains one of the many special memories he left Liverpool supporters.
2021: Ten-man Atlético beaten at Anfield
A year later, in 2021, Jota opened the scoring against Atlético Madrid after 13 minutes, and Mané made it 2-0 eight minutes later. Alexander-Arnold set up both goals.
Diego Simeone’s side were down to ten men in the 36th minute, when Felipe was sent off for a foul on Mané. Jota and former Red Luis Suárez both had goals ruled out by VAR for offside.
The win took Liverpool into the last 16 as group winners with two games to spare, and it stretched their unbeaten run in all competitions to 25 games, equalling the club record set under Paisley in 1982. The run ended at West Ham four days later.
1998: Red mist at the Mestalla
In 1998, with Roy Evans and Gérard Houllier in joint charge, Liverpool went to Valencia for the second leg of their UEFA Cup second-round tie after a goalless first leg at Anfield. Claudio López put the home side ahead on the stroke of half-time, and for long spells the Reds were hanging on.
With ten minutes left, Steve McManaman headed in Michael Owen’s cross at the far post, and five minutes later Patrik Berger fired Liverpool in front.
Then it boiled over. Amedeo Carboni struck McManaman, and in the melee that followed McManaman, Paul Ince and Carboni were all sent off. Valencia equalised deep into stoppage time when a López free-kick hit the post and went in off David James, but Liverpool went through on away goals.
1976: Trabzonspor swept aside
Fifty years ago today, Paisley’s Liverpool needed to overturn a 1-0 first-leg defeat in Trabzon in the European Cup second round, and they did it before the game was 20 minutes old.
In front of 42,275 at Anfield, Steve Heighway scored after eight minutes, David Johnson added a second soon afterwards and Kevin Keegan made it 3-0. The 3-1 aggregate win was another step on the road to Rome, where Liverpool won the European Cup for the first time the following May.
Also on this day
- 1894: Burnley won 3-0 at Anfield.
- 1900: Johnny Walker scored, but Liverpool lost 2-1 at Wolverhampton Wanderers.
- 1906: Sam Raybould’s goal won it 1-0 at Middlesbrough.
- 1923: Harry Chambers scored in a 1-1 draw with Huddersfield Town at Anfield.
- 1928: Birmingham won 2-1 at Anfield.
- 1934: Vic Wright and Gordon Hodgson scored in a 2-1 win over Wolves at Anfield.
- 1951: Jimmy Payne scored in a 1-1 draw at Newcastle United.
- 1956: Johnny Wheeler hit a hat-trick and Billy Liddell scored the other in a 4-1 Second Division win over Port Vale at Anfield.
- 1962: Ian St John scored, but Burnley won 2-1 at Anfield.
- 1971: Alun Evans scored in a 3-1 defeat at Bayern Munich that ended the Reds’ European Cup Winners’ Cup run in the second round.
- 1973: Emlyn Hughes and John Toshack scored in a 2-0 win over Arsenal at Highbury.
- 1979: Kenny Dalglish scored twice and Ray Kennedy once in a 3-0 win over Wolves at Anfield.
- 1984: Ronnie Whelan’s late goal won it 1-0 at Stoke City.
- 1996: Chris Sutton scored twice, one a penalty, and Jason Wilcox once as Blackburn Rovers won 3-0 at Ewood Park.
- 2004: A Jorge Andrade own goal gave Liverpool a 1-0 Champions League group win at Deportivo La Coruña.
- 2007: A goalless draw at Blackburn Rovers.
- 2018: James Milner scored, but Alexandre Lacazette equalised late on in a 1-1 draw with Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium.
