It was all one big joke to Atletico Madrid’s Diego Costa, who pretended to cough on journalists as he walked past them on the way out of Anfield that night.
But time would show that it was no laughing matter and that, even by his standards, Costa’s actions were particularly despicable.
Liverpool’s last home game against Atletico Madrid, which took place against the gathering storm of Covid last year, should never have been played at all.
The morning newspapers that day — Wednesday, March 11 2020 — revealed the escalating scale of the crisis.