If Liverpool manage to overcome Paris Saint-Germain then Arne Slot will be charging towards immortality

Arne Slot stands within touching distance of immortality.

You might not know it when observing the cool, calm and collected demeanour he often – but not always, as seen at Goodison Park last month – possesses.

Slot himself might not know it. The schedule has been relentless: 28 games since the last international break way back in November, 18 already in 2025. So the manager, who thinks about football from the second he awakes, may not have had time to pause for reflection.

Next Monday, he finally can do that – with no game for two weeks.

When he takes the short flight home to his family residence in Zwolle, he may well be hit with the sudden realisation that he is a Carabao Cup winner, about to win the Premier League at a canter and maybe he will become a European champion, too.

If he wins just the title from here, this is still one of the finest debut seasons the Premier League has ever witnessed. Standing in the shadows of the great Jurgen Klopp, with just one new signing – the lesser-spotted Federico Chiesa – a top-four finish felt like par for the course.

But if he wins all three trophies? That will be one of the greatest coaching campaigns we have ever seen in football, full stop… never mind debut seasons, or English football.

The next six days are what determines where this campaign will stand in the record books. Young boys and girls at Anfield who are perhaps getting their first taste for football may talk about this season to their own children and grandchildren when they are old and grey.

First up standing in Liverpool’s way are Paris Saint-Germain, arguably second to only Slot’s side as the best team in Europe this season. The Reds bring a shock 1-0 lead into this second leg after what was described by French newspaper L’Equipe as ‘English robbery’.

Then on Sunday, they will travel down to London to play Newcastle – or whatever is left of Eddie Howe’s men amid a terribly-timed injury and suspension crisis – and look to defend the Carabao Cup in the Wembley final.

Slot is standing on the shoulders of giants and already writing his name into the history books at this storied old club. It could be the best season for Liverpool since 1984, when Joe Fagan won the league, European Cup and Milk Cup.

So is Slot allowing himself to dream? ‘No, in a week like this I do not dream at all,’ he said on Monday night. ‘I just know I have to work really, really, really hard to prepare the team in the best possible way. That is what I try to do in every single game.

‘If you have a game like we did last week, you feel like, “Can I even go to sleep at all? Or do I have to watch even more (analysis)?” So no, I do not dream at all at the moment about this week. We are just focused on what we have to do in the game.

‘The week started very well in terms of beating Southampton on Saturday. Now we are just looking forward to tomorrow, everyone looks forward to a game of football like this. At Anfield, two great teams playing against each other.’

Two great teams indeed. Slot’s opposite number, Luis Enrique, reckons that the winner of this tie will go all the way to the Munich final. He also insisted last week that he is certain PSG will overturn the one-goal deficit.

Perhaps his assertiveness is lost in translation, slightly, but the Spaniard has every right to be confident given the players he has at his disposal, such as red-hot Ousmane Dembele, Khvicha Kvaratskhelia and boy wonder Bradley Barcola up front.

There is also Vitinha and Joao Neves in midfield, the two little Portuguese lads who dictate play in a way that makes one think of Xavi and Andres Iniesta at prime Barcelona.

Enrique managed that pair, of course, when he won the Treble for the Catalan club in 2014-15. Back then, Slot was just starting his managerial journey at Dutch club Cambuur.

Now the two bosses are equal and Slot added: ‘They are such a complete team, such a well managed team and we experienced that last Wednesday. Some people said we played poorly, I don’t agree. I just think they played tremendously well.

‘PSG are the most complete team we have played so far. What I mean by complete is of course we have faced Arsenal and Manchester City and it is not that there are big differences or margins but the quality and intensity they play at combined with the quality.

‘And they have a great, great manager, because he lets the team play in a way that is not easy and he brings the best out of every player.’

This match really is a game worthy of the final, given PSG went 22 unbeaten before last week and have a young team that should – and most probably will, under the guidance of Enrique – only get better.

In many ways, they are two teams at the beginning of their journeys: PSG in the post-Kylian Mbappe era where ‘galacticos’ have been ditched for hard-working and energetic young talents, Liverpool in a transition season after the legendary boss Klopp sailed off into the sun.

And that last point should serve as a reminder, if needed, just how sensational this campaign has been for Slot and his relentless coaching team. No one, perhaps not even Liverpool’s data gurus who picked him out as the chosen one, expected success to follow so soon.

Of course, as the Dutchman himself often points out, Liverpool have not won anything yet.

But the banner in the Kop that has side-on illustrations of six legendary former bosses – Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Fagan, Kenny Dalglish, Rafa Benitez and Klopp – may soon need a bit of an edit.