Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has welcomed their Champions League quarterfinal draw with Benfica.
It was in Lisbon – where the Reds will contest the first leg of their last-eight tie with the Portuguese side next month – that he decided to cut short a sabbatical from management and take charge at Anfield in 2015.
And Klopp is excited by the challenge of facing a team Liverpool have yet to play since his appointment, with a semi-final against either Villarreal or Bayern Munich awaiting the winners.
He said, "Really looking forward to it. It's a quarter-final so a tough one. Benfica did obviously really well against Ajax and that's the situation; I know people will say we are the favourites and stuff like this, but that's already the first mistake you could make. We are too long in the business now to make these kinds of mistakes. I'm just really looking forward to it.
"I respect a lot what they are doing there, it's a massive club. I don't think I ever played there, to be 100 per cent honest. Lisbon, a great city, on top of that – I spent my last week off on holiday [before taking the Liverpool job], I got the call from Mike Gordon in Lisbon. So that's a nice memory as well; I was sitting in an outside coffee bar, I got the call and we made the decision actually in Lisbon."
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