
Liverpool have vowed their second showdown with Israeli champions Maccabi Haifa will be different from their first meeting a fortnight ago.
Then Liverpool looked short of match fitness and ideas against a competitive Haifa side who were hell bent on causing a Champions League upset.
And they almost managed it after talking the lead in the third qualifying round first leg at Anfield, and only a late Mark Gonzalez goal minutes after making his debut as a substitute, secured a slender 2-1 lead to take into Tuesday's second leg in Kiev.
Liverpool did not know the venue of the second match for several days after that first meeting and had been hoping for Cyprus because of the Middle East conflict.
That they have ended up in Dynamo Kiev's small Valery Lobanovskiy home ground - not as has been suggested, the giant Olympic stadium that Liverpool played in a few years back against the Ukrainians - is a disappointment.
Kiev's own ground has no cover, can accommodate only around 16,000, and will be a daunting venue.
A bigger lead from that first leg would have made the trip more agreeable, but Gonzalez believes everyone will see a different Liverpool this time around.
He said: "The second leg will be hard, but we will be different this time.
"We are fitter now and have played a few more matches, including last weekend's win over Chelsea.
"And Haifa will have to come out at us to get the goal back. That will leave more gaps for us to exploit with our pace."
Boss Rafael Benitez agrees. He said: "We are further down the road to full fitness and will be better for it.
"Haifa did very well at Anfield, but they were able to sit back and try to frustrate us. They will not be able to do that so much in this second game.
"They will come forward more and we have the players who can take advantage of that."
Benitez will know his financial planning and the club's plans for the future hang on the second leg.
Liverpool would claim around £12million from qualifying for the group stages, vital money needed now squad improvements have seen another £10million spent on Dirk Kuyt from Feyenoord, who is ineligible for this second leg.
Any extra cash from UEFA's coffers would underpin future spending and make Liverpool a more attractive prospect for the capital injection the board are still searching for.
Fail at this stage and the club's strategy would flounder, something Benitez would not want after agreeing last season to sign a new long-term contract on the back of promises of significant funding for the future.
But Benitez believes the second leg will be different, as his top stars reach peak fitness following the World Cup.
Benitez said: "So many players were unfit after less training because of the World Cup and there were difficult decisions to make. But next time we play Haifa we will be a lot fitter, we have been working and playing for another couple of weeks since the first leg and we will be much better.
"At least we will have more options and that will be easier for me. There were players in the first leg who were 15 days behind the rest in terms of fitness. Haifa will have to attack more next time and we will be better on the counter attack."
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