Seven months ago, before moving to England, Alisson was part of the Roma side that won 4-2 in Napoli in a match where he managed to save 11 out of 13 shots on target.
However, Napoli have not shown the same attacking flare under Ancelotti as they did under Maurizio Sarri – as exemplified in the scoreless draw at Red Star Belgrade in their group opener.
They also lost 3-1 to Juventus in the Italian league on Saturday (29th September).
Napoli and Liverpool met in a friendly game in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium in early August, with the English side winning 5-0.
Liverpool return to the venue for the first time since October 2010, when they earned a goalless draw.
The starting line-up from that game reads like a blacklist of players from a period of the club’s history fans would sooner forget.
It was midway through during Roy Hodgson’s ill-fated six-month tenure, and just a couple of weeks after owners Fenway Sports Group had succeeded in their October takeover.
A team of Jose Reina, Martin Kelly, Martin Skrtel, Jamie Carragher, Paul Konchesky, Jay Spearing, Christian Poulsen, Jonjo Shelvey, Milan Jovanovic, David Ngog and Ryan Babel secured a bland Europa League draw.
On the bench that night were Brad Jones, Fabio Aurelio, Sotirios Kyrgiakos, Danny Wilson, Joe Cole, Maxi Rodriguez and Nathan Eccleston.
Of that 18-strong party only Reina and Carragher, and to a lesser degree Aurelio and Rodriguez, are looked back upon with any great fondness.
Liverpool travelled without midfielder Adam Lallana, who has yet to recover from a groin strain, but they will have a bench tomorrow which will sport the likes of Daniel Sturridge, Xherdan Shaqiri and Fabinho.
Klopp is also making his return to the stadium for the first time since he was sent off as Borussia Dortmund manager in 2013 for an angry outburst at the fourth official.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has dismissed what he claims are mind games by Napoli counterpart Carlo Ancelotti during a press conference on Monday on the eve of their Champions League Group C match.
The Serie A side’s coach, who has experience of facing Klopp at Borussia Dortmund when he was Bayern Munich boss, praised the work the German had done at Anfield and the progress he has made.
Ancelotti said Klopp was “a difficult adversary, a friend; his teams are very dynamic, aggressive, they stand up a lot, they always have an identity”, and they had gone up a level since reaching the Champions League final in May.
However, Klopp laughed it off ahead of their League Group C encounter in Naples.
“It’s tactics. It starts already. Carlo (Ancelotti) has been so long in the business and he wants to try to bring the very nice fellow out of me, let me say like it this. And I am here to be ready for a real battle and stuff like that.
So, I don’t care too much what people say about us in the moment and how they see our situation. Yes, we are, we were, I am not saying we are, we were stable in the last few weeks, we performed in a consistent ok level, but again tomorrow we need to step up, we need to make the next step in that.”
In their first Champions League game of the season, Liverpool beat Paris Saint-Germain 3-2, while Napoli were held to a goalless draw in Belgrade by Crvena Zvezda. SNTV
