With its Premier League title defence in tatters, Liverpool kept its last chance of a trophy alive by beating Leipzig 2-0 on Wednesday to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane scored Liverpool’s goals to complete a 4-0 win on aggregate.
Liverpool ended its run of six defeats in home games, at least technically, as Jurgen Klopp’s team was officially the host at the neutral Puskas Arena in Hungary.
Klopp said Liverpool succeeded by forgetting about the collapse of its campaign in England, where the team is 25 points off the league lead.
“We had to switch off the Premier League stuff to get here and give it a proper try. The boys really enjoyed themselves tonight which is important,” he told broadcaster BT Sport.
A string of saves by goalkeeper Peter Gulacsi – once a Liverpool player – kept Leipzig in contention before Salah made the breakthrough in the 70th minute.
Salah lined up a low shot tucked inside the right post after Diogo Jota showed smart movement on the counter to create space for Salah before passing to the Egypt forward.
As Leipzig, who surprisingly reached the semi-finals last season, tried to find a way back into the game four minutes later, substitute Divock Origi found space on the right flank to cross low for Mane to tap in.
The closest Leipzig came to scoring was when Alexander Sorloth headed against the crossbar in the 67th, before Liverpool responded with two goals to end the German team’s chances.
Just as in the first leg, Liverpool was handed chances by defensive blunders.
Leipzig has the fewest goals conceded of any team in the Bundesliga but couldn’t reproduce that form in Europe this season, conceding 16 times in eight games.
“The best thing the boys did is nobody could really see how good Leipzig can be,” Klopp said.
“We defended them really well because they are a monster usually. They’re so powerful and can run in behind but we defended that really well.”
A long ball from Thiago Alcantara found Salah free behind the Leipzig defence in the 24th before Gulacsi parried away the Egyptian’s shot and Mane headed the rebound into the ground.
Not long after, Diogo Jota beat Nordi Mukiele and found the Leipzig back line open in front of him before Gulacsi again saved.
At the other end, Alisson Becker stopped an early Leipzig attack, pushing away a shot from Dani Olmo in the 10th when Leipzig exploited Liverpool’s high defensive line to counter.
Injury-hit Liverpool’s latest makeshift centre-back pairing of Ozan Kabak and Nathaniel Phillips largely held firm, though Emil Forsberg went close when he beat Phillips dragged a shot wide of the post late in the first half.
“We didn’t reach our best level of achievement today and so we don’t deserve to progress, however tough that may feel,” Leipzig coach Julian Nagelsmann told Sky Sport in Germany.
Both legs were played in Budapest because of restrictions in Germany on travel from Britain amid the pandemic.
Liverpool was barred from entering Germany for the first leg, and Leipzig would have had to put its players in quarantine after returning from Britain if Liverpool had hosted at Anfield.
The Hungarian capital is also hosting both of Manchester City’s last-16 matches against German club Borussia Moenchengladbach.
Timeline
2012-2015
The company offers payments/bribes to win key contracts in the Middle East
May 2017
The UK SFO officially opens investigation into Petrofac’s use of agents, corruption, and potential bribery to secure contracts
September 2021
Petrofac pleads guilty to seven counts of failing to prevent bribery under the UK Bribery Act
October 2021
Court fines Petrofac £77 million for bribery. Former executive receives a two-year suspended sentence
December 2024
Petrofac enters into comprehensive restructuring to strengthen the financial position of the group
May 2025
The High Court of England and Wales approves the company’s restructuring plan
July 2025
The Court of Appeal issues a judgment challenging parts of the restructuring plan
August 2025
Petrofac issues a business update to execute the restructuring and confirms it will appeal the Court of Appeal decision
October 2025
Petrofac loses a major TenneT offshore wind contract worth €13 billion. Holding company files for administration in the UK. Petrofac delisted from the London Stock Exchange
November 2025
180 Petrofac employees laid off in the UAE
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
