In the 12th minute, Liverpool finally found a crack in the fortress, not through tactics, but through pure, individual genius.
Mo Salah received the ball on the right wing, marked by two defenders.
He shimmied, he feinted, his feet a lightning-fast blur, and then, with an explosive burst of speed, he was gone, squeezing through an impossible gap between the two of them. He drove into the box, and the third defender, in a blind panic, lunged in with a clumsy, desperate tackle.
The whistle was immediate. Penalty to Liverpool.
The Napoli players surrounded the referee, screaming, but the decision was clear.
Salah himself, the king of Anfield, the 'Alpha Attacker', calmly took the ball and placed it on the spot, completely unfazed by the deafening whistles of 60,000 furious Neapolitans.
He took his run-up and coolly slotted the ball into the bottom corner as the keeper dove the wrong way.
1-0 to Liverpool.
