Jurgen Klopp is 90 minutes away from a trip to Wembley Stadium and 180 from a first trophy as Liverpool manager.
Yet if the League Cup offers a chance at glory, the FA Cup first brings a possibility of ignominy. Liverpool travel to League Two Exeter City on Friday night.
Klopp won the German Cup, with Borussia Dortmund in 2012, but the FA Cup has brought embarrassment against lower-league opponents for some of the Premier League’s other most distinguished managerial imports.
Jose Mourinho
The 2007 FA Cup winner Mourinho appeared to have a virtual immunity to shocks so League One Bradford City’s visit last January appeared a formality.
Still more so when Chelsea took a 2-0 lead. Instead Phil Parkinson’s Bradford came back to win 4-2, becoming the only visiting team to score four goals at Stamford Bridge in Mourinho’s two reigns and the only team to beat Chelsea at home last season.
It was, some thought, perhaps the greatest ever FA Cup upset. “It’s a disgrace for a big team to lose to a small team from a lower league,” said Mourinho. “Me and the players must feel ashamed.”
Manuel Pellegrini
A regular tale of underestimating Championship opposition. Both of Pellegrini’s FA Cup campaigns have been ended by second-tier opponents and both at home, with Wigan winning 2-1 and Middlesbrough 2-0 at the Etihad Stadium.
To compound matters, Manchester City have also trailed to two other Championship teams, Watford and Sheffield Wednesday, at home.
Pellegrini may be relieved to face Premier League opposition, in Norwich, this year.
Rafa Benitez
A distinctly mixed bag. Benitez won the FA Cup in 2006 when Steven Gerrard produced a repeat of his Istanbul heroics and Liverpool triumphed against West Ham United on penalties after a 3-3 draw.
Before and after, however, the path was littered with pratfalls. Three of his five FA Cup defeats came to lower-league sides. Djimi Traore scored a comical own goal at Burnley in 2005 when Benitez, underestimating the competition, fielded a hugely weakened team.
In 2008, Liverpool trailed to non-league Havant & Waterlooville, recovered to win but then went out to a Barnsley team with a debutant goalkeeper, Luke Steele, at Anfield in the next round.
That was echoed in 2010 when Liverpool led against a Reading team with a caretaker manager, Brian McDermott, and lost 2-1 at Anfield again.
Gerard Houllier
Houllier’s reign at Anfield peaked in the FA Cup, with the 2001 final win against Arsenal part of a Treble in knockout competitions that season. Yet there were also notable low points.
Liverpool went out at Anfield to Championship team Blackburn in 2000, with Nathan Blake getting the only goal.
A wretched season in 2002-03 was summed up when Liverpool were eliminated at home again by a second-tier team, with the defeat all the more damning because Crystal Palace were down to 10 men for the last 20 minutes.
Sven-Goran Eriksson
Eriksson won the Coppa Italia with three different clubs and had seven domestic Cup wins to his name long before Manchester City appointed him in 2007. There was no eighth triumph.
City visited Championship side Sheffield United in the fourth round and exited in quixotic fashion. Luton Shelton’s opening goal came after City left-back Michael Ball was wrong-footed when the ball bounced off a balloon in the penalty box.
Those balloons were brought by City’s away fans, who saw their team lose 2-1 in strange fashion.
Arsene Wenger
The Frenchman is the great exception, the arrival to British shores who has become the most successful manager in the history of the world’s oldest Cup competition.
A winner six times, a runner-up once and a beaten semi-finalist on three more occasions, he has also excelled at averting upsets.
With one exception. In February 2013, Blackburn were in the middle of a traumatic season when they employed five managers and flirted with relegation to League One.
They nevertheless arrived at the Emirates Stadium and won 1-0, thanks to a Colin Kazim-Richards goal.
sports@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter @NatSportUAE
Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/TheNationalSport