It might just have been the two defeats that sparked Liverpool's rise to greatness.

Red Star Belgrade passed their way through the ranks of Bill Shankly's men, cutting them to pieces while beating them in Yugoslavia and then at Anfield.

They won each of the 1973/74 European Cup Second Round ties against Liverpool 2-1 but more than that, their methodical, controlled and incisive brand of European-style football taught Bill Shankly's men a footballing lesson.

It forced the man from Glenbuck, along with his backroom staff, to re-think the way they went about breaking opposition sides down and ultimately led to Liverpool adapting a similar, continental model of play that would see them dominate Europe throughout the 12 years that followed.

A week ago Miljan Miljanic, the man who moulded that Red Star Belgrade side into such a formidable unit who excelled in playing this new style of football, died aged 81.

His successes at Belgrade, which included four league titles, his consecutive league wins at Real Madrid and his twenty-year stretch as President of the Yugoslav Football Federation (1981-2001), will mean that Miljanic leaves his mark on generations of football fans around the world.

But the influence he had at Anfield, during two fleeting encounters with the Reds, should never be underestimated.

Sportswriter John Keith, who after over thirty years working for the Daily Express became a close acquaintance of Shankly and won the trust of those in the Liverpool Boot Room, explained the fall-out from the defeat to Belgrade.

"That European exit led to the biggest internal re-appraisal of Liverpool's style since Shankly first laid the foundations," said Keith.

"And the main conclusion of a Boot Room inquest held by Shankly, Paisley and the staff was that the game had to be played more 'from the back'.

"The era of the stopper centre-half was disappearing. Defenders had to be creative as well as destructive, initiating moves in seamless links with midfield and attack. Football was witnessing a new fluency.

"Significantly, Phil Thompson was installed as centre back partner to Emlyn Hughes, who had succeeded Tommy Smith as captain, while Larry Lloyd left that season to join Coventry."

The Boot Room had concluded that the heart of the defence needed someone more technically adept, a player who was able to carry the ball and launch attacks, rather than just repel them.

Shankly said: "The Europeans showed that building from the back is the only way to play.

"When they play the ball from the back they play in little groups. The pattern of the opposition changes as they change.

"This leaves room for players like Ray Kennedy and Terry McDermott to sneak in for the final pass. So it's cat and mouse for a while waiting for an opening to appear before the final ball is let loose. It's simple and it's effective.

"It started in Europe and we adapted it into our game at Liverpool where our system has always been a collective one. But when Thompson came in to partner Hughes it became more fluid and perhaps not as easy to identify.

"This set the pattern which was followed by Thompson and Alan Hansen in later years. We realized that you can't score a goal every time you get the ball. And we learned this from Europe."

The change in approach to the game benefitted Bob Paisley significantly more than his predecessor, as Shankly stepped down in 1974 and the matches against Red Star Belgrade proved to be his last as Liverpool manager in Europe.

Paisley won three European Cups and a UEFA cup in the years that followed.

He said: "We realized it was no use winning the ball if you finished up on your backside. The top Europeans showed us how to break out of defence effectively.

"The pace of their movement was dictated by their first pass. We had to learn how to be patient like that and think about the next two or three moves when we had the ball." 

Miljan Miljanic was born in Bitola, now a part of Macedonia, and spent his playing days at Red Star Belgrade before taking up the role as manager of the club in 1966. He departed for Real Madrid in 1974, where he won the league in his first two years in charge.

His footballing philosophy, the very same one that inspired Shankly and Paisley to re-adjust their own, is illustrated most lucidly through his own words.

Miljanic said: "It is necessary that the player in possession of the ball finds himself as often as possible with a very rich choice of several solutions. This can be done only when a team's players all take part in the attacking play and in defence."

Last week he died aged 81.