Liverpool flop scored stunner in Toulouse but blamed Scouse accent for struggles
Liverpool travel to Toulouse on Thursday night for the first time in 16 years.
The French side have only rarely featured in European competition since that first meeting in 2007. That game came as part of qualifying for the Champions League group stages, with Rafa Benitez 's Reds travelling to the Stadium de Toulouse for the first leg of the tie.
Benitez's side claimed a narrow 1-0 win, before overpowering Les Violets in the second leg at Anfield. Their winner on that French night in August 2007 came courtesy of a stunning strike from Andriy Voronin, in what would be the highlight of his time at the club.
Voronin spent an ill-fated three years at Anfield after joining on a free transfer from Bayer Leverkusen. The second of those seasons was spent on loan at Hertha Berlin, before he was allowed to join Dynamo Moscow in 2010.
His first goal for the Reds will live long in the memory though, as he chested down Peter Crouch's flick-on, turned and fired in a rising shot from 25 yards out. That goal was enough for Liverpool to win and ultimately helped them progress through the qualifiers.
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Unsurprisingly, Benitez was full of praise for the Ukrainian, who had only arrived on Merseyside that summer. And the Spaniard insisted that the stunning goal was a sign of things to come.
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Andriy Voronin scored the winner the last time Liverpool played in Toulouse (Getty Images)"Andriy scored a wonderful goal, it summed up his qualities as a very fine striker. He is clever, has great game awareness and gives us so many more options in attack. He can play behind a main striker, lead the line himself, or come into the attack from the flanks," Benitez said.
"And of course he can score truly great goals like that. But we must not think this tie is over. We did a very professional job in a match played in difficult conditions. We must not think we are already through. This tie is not yet over, it is just one goal."
While Liverpool would progress past Toulouse, that first game was about as good as it got for Voronin. He would score just five more times for the Reds before his departure from Russia, with the attacker later bizarrely blaming his issues on the Scouse accent.
When asked about his toughest issues at Liverpool, he said: “Scouse. I understood almost nothing, my English wasn’t good anyway. When Carragher and Gerrard talked, I asked them to repeat it in English. Liverpool didn’t suit me as a city overall, even though it has a lot of history to offer, such as the Beatles.
"My father is a big fan of the band. When I told him I had signed with Liverpool, he started crying. I also couldn’t cope with the weather and the rhythm of the games without a winter break. I was just travelling and playing, which was very exhausting.”
Voronin retired in 2013 but returned to Dynamo as assistant manager to Sandro Schwarz seven years later. He resigned from that role in March 2022 after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with the former Liverpool star branding Vladimir Putin a "son of a b****".
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