Luis Garcia stuns Leverkusen
Rafael Benitez believes that Liverpool have made the European superpowers sit up and take notice following their stunning progress to the Champions League quarter-finals.
A magnificent 3-1 victory in Germany last night gave Liverpool a 6-2 aggregate win over 2002 runners-up Bayer Leverkusen and opened up the prospect of an all-English quarter-final against Chelsea.
Benitez said: "Nobody can underestimate us, it gives us more confidence. Other teams will see our performance and know they must be careful against us.
"In my opinion we have actually played better than that this season, against Deportivo for instance. But let's see what the draw brings and then think about the next game only. We don't think about the Champions League, we can only think about the next tie."
Spanish forward Luis Garcia scored twice in the first half and Milan Baros added the third before Bayer's late consolation, to take Liverpool to the last eight of the competition for the 10th time.
Steven Gerrard, who ran the show playing just behind Baros, said: "We played well, the best we have played for a while. That was the game plan. We never came here for a draw or a 1-0 defeat. We knew we could punish them on the counter."
