New Delhi: Liverpool has cruised into the final of the FIFA Club World Championship with a 3-0 win over Deportivo Saprissa.
Peter Crouch scored a brace while Steven Gerrard also found the back of the net to score for Liverpool.
Later Crouch said that he rued scoring a hat-trick.
However the 24-year-old striker insisted the 3-0 Club World Championship semi-final win was a job well done.
He fired home the opening goal with barely three minutes on the clock and then followed it up just before the hour.
He had chances for a third, the best of which he fashioned himself, controlling a high ball and cleverly manoeuvring himself in the area before firing over.
"It would have been nice to get the hat-trick, but it was good to get a couple of goals," Crouch said of his second two-goal haul of the season, having earlier been officially credited with both goals against Wigan.
"I'm pleased with how I played and it was a great performance from the team."
He added: "The early goal was good for us. It settled us down and we could play from there. Once we got that we never looked in danger of losing the game.
"We've felt the expectation on us, everyone thought we were favourites, and so we had to go in there and do a professional job.
"We played well, scored three goals, didn't concede again and the team deserves credit for that as well."
Crouch's boss, Rafael Benitez, was less impressed, complaining Liverpool scored too early and then took their foot off the gas.
A combination of wastefulness, over-elaboration and complacency saw the European champions fail to press home their advantage as Benitez had wanted.
"After we scored so early, we thought it would be easy and while we had two or three chances to score in the first half, we didn't score the third goal," the Spaniard said.
"In the second half, Saprissa could start again and if they had scored they may have thought the win was possible. We needed to score the third goal to kill the game because after the third goal it was easier for us."
The Reds moved into the decider, in the process, recording a club-record 11th consecutive win and will meet Brazilian club Sao Paulo in Sunday's decider.
The club insist there will be no change to their preparations for the Club World Championship final despite reports that manager Rafael Benitez's father has died.
A club spokesman would not confirm the death, but stated that the Reds will continue their build-up with Benitez in charge as planned.
"The manager has taken training as normal today (Friday) and we are not anticipating anything will change over the weekend," said the spokesman.
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