In the National Football League (NFL), the Buffalo Bills are and, without a New England Patriots-esque decades-long memory-wiping run of incredible form, will always be considered a terrible team. One of the main reasons why is that they lost the Super Bowl from 1990 to 1993.

No other team had been to so many consecutively and therefore none could have ever lost so many consecutively either. In those losses, the simple fact that they had winning records, topped their division, won the AFC East Divisional Playoff and won the AFC Championship game was erased. Nobody cares about second place, no matter what you did to get there; either you're the winner, or you're just one of the losers, and as it stands, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is about to go down as one of the biggest losers in football history.

One week ago, a rampaging Liverpool were heading to the Camp Nou to face a Barcelona team resting on their insanely wealthy laurels – and then the game took place and Liverpool were given a 3-0 smackdown. One from former Redman Luis Suarez and a sensational brace from a fired up Lionel Messi. It flipped the narrative of the contest on its head; maybe Liverpool aren't that good after all, maybe Barcelona only seem to be flagging because, without a head-to-head race with Real Madrid this season, maybe (that word again) they don't have to be until Champions League games come around.

Tonight is the second leg at Anfield. In the meantime, it's been a long week for Liverpool. There was only one fixture, a game at St. James' Park against a Newcastle side with something to prove under the stewardship of Rafael Benitez – the former Liverpool manager who guided the team to that eternal night in Istanbul – that was a knockdown, drag out five-goal thriller that was significantly more work than it needed to be and effectively eliminated Mo Salah from this much more important game as he was stretchered off with a concussion. Roberto Firmino is out of the game too as he is still recovering from a muscle injury.

Barcelona, on the other hand, have no physical concerns. A stroll against Celta Vigo ended in a 2-0 loss, a somewhat insignificant result considering they already have La Liga won. Their concerns are likely to be mental, and a little atavistic. In both the 2016-17 and 2017-218 campaign, Barcelona were involved in games that proved there's no such thing as a safe lead in the Champions League.

First, after getting blown out at home 4-0 by a Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) team looking to prove they were the real deal, they won 6-1 at the Parc des Princes in the second leg – goals included a quick fire score from Suarez in the third minute, two goals from Neymar and a final minute decider from Sergi Roberto. Then, in the next season, a 4-1 win at the Camp Nou against Roma was one away goal too many and a 3-0 loss at the Studio Olimpico in Rome sent the Serie A side through. Results like that suggest a Liverpool comeback of 4-0 isn't impossible.

Many would consider it a footballing miracle, for Klopp it would be more like fate. Since his rise to prominence a decade ago at the Bundesliga's Borussia Dortmund, he's lost more finals and come second more than anybody else.

Across the two teams he's most famous for managing (Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool), he's been smothered by the bigger sides almost every time. Since 2012, he's come second in the Bundesliga twice, lost the final of the Premiere Ligapokal (the German FA Cup) twice, lost the final of the English Football League Cup, lost the finals of the Champions League twice (once with Dortmund and once with Liverpool), and is on course to come second in the Premier League this season too.

He needs this win to banish the ghosts of the past and prove he isn't football's nearly man, and at Anfield on a big European night, anything is possible.