Liverpool needed less than a minute to score against Dynamo Berlin at Anfield on 13 December 1972. They needed considerably longer to settle the UEFA Cup tie. Phil Boersma’s opener was answered almost immediately, before Steve Heighway and John Toshack established the advantage which carried Liverpool into the quarter-finals.
The first leg in East Berlin had finished 0–0. Boersma’s goal inside the opening minute therefore put Liverpool ahead on aggregate as well as on the night, but Wolf-Rüdiger Netz equalised in the eighth minute.
That reply changed the position of the tie. At 1–1, Berlin held the away-goal advantage: Liverpool could not progress simply by preventing further goals. They had to score again.
Heighway did so in the twenty-fifth minute, restoring Liverpool’s lead before the interval. Toshack added the third early in the second half, with Peter Cormack credited with the assist. There was no further change to the score, and Liverpool advanced 3–1 on aggregate.
The starting side included Phil Thompson, while Emlyn Hughes wore the captain’s armband. Neither Tommy Smith nor Kevin Keegan was in the eleven. Boersma took his opportunity, making another contribution to a European campaign in which he would score four times.
He was not a permanent first-choice player, but the season’s returns show his importance to the squad. Alongside those UEFA Cup goals, he supplied seven in the First Division as Liverpool won the championship. The Berlin opener belonged to that wider contribution, even though Heighway’s and Toshack’s goals were required to make it count towards qualification.
Liverpool had already eliminated Eintracht Frankfurt and AEK Athens. Their next opponents would be another East German side, Dynamo Dresden, with the quarter-final played in March.
The victory completed Liverpool’s European fixtures for 1972. A goalless away leg and a rapid home breakthrough had not removed the danger of Berlin’s away goal, but two further Liverpool goals ensured that the campaign continued into the spring.