VIRGIL’S BIG NIG
Just when it’s all going so well, defender is hit by a Messi one-two
IT WAS the speed of the reaction that caught out Virgil van Dijk. As the ball came back off the bar, he was on his heels and Lionel Messi was not.
So, Messi scored the 599th goal of his Barcelona career and Van Dijk was left to reflect on another bad night at the Nou Camp.
The last time he was here, with Celtic in 2013, his team had conceded six, so you could say this was an improvement. But it was a failure all the same.
On a night when Liverpool were as good as — even better than — Barcelona in so many areas and for so long, they lost the game and Van Dijk lost his personal battle with perhaps the greatest attacking player the world has seen.
On television, Rio Ferdinand blamed Van Dijk for the first goal, scored in the opening half by Luis Suarez. That was a marginal call.
Van Dijk’s defensive partner, Joel Matip, was caught napping as Suarez stole in. At the very least, both were marginally culpable.
For the second, though, Messi was too quick in thought and deed. Van Dijk looked to the ground (below) after Messi rammed the ball in from close range. He knew what everybody else knew, namely that a 1-0 defeat would have been palatable, but a loss by two was not.
There was to be another goal, of course, and we will all remember that one. Messi’s free-kick took the paint off the post as it went in.
But it was the second goal that shaped this game and the tie. Liverpool were the better team at that point and it changed everything.
At 1-0 to Barcelona with 15 minutes to go, Liverpool led their hosts in possession, shots and corners. That reflected the way the game had gone for long periods.
Barcelona had looked vulnerable for the first half-hour of the second half, in particular. Had they been offered a single-goal win at that stage, they would have taken it.
But the second goal gave the Spanish champions security and on the back of that came renewed courage and confidence; the fortitude to play expansively and take risks.
And so, by the end, it was 3-0 and it could have been four or five. Twice in stoppage time, Barcelona should have scored again, including with the very last kick of the game, so it is worth repeating that the second goal was very important indeed, probably the most crucial of the home team’s season in Europe.
History will record that this was just another in a long list of Barcelona victories at the Nou Camp against English teams. Their aggregate in six games against Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and the two Manchester clubs is now 19-3 dating back to, and not including, Chelsea’s 2- 2 draw here seven years ago. But those who were here will tell you that this night was different.
This is what we had been waiting for in recent years, a game between the club who have set the bar so high in Europe for the last decade and a Premier League side good enough to give them a proper match.
Manchester City failed here in 2014, 2015 and 2016 because those games came too early for a club on the rise. Chelsea came last season but were not good enough, and Manchester United’s recent effort is barely worthy of recall.
This, though, was different, at least for 75 minutes. This was a game that went by in a blur of activity, a whirl of press and counter-press, attack and counter-attack.
Liverpool matched Barcelona across every blade, but could not score, and how they failed to do so is a mystery. When Mohamed Salah struck a post from seven yards late on, we knew beyond doubt that this was a strange night.
Perhaps the biggest compliment we can pay Jurgen Klopp’s team is that they ultimately brought the best out of Barcelona.
Comfortable winners of La Liga, Ernesto Valverde’s team have nevertheless not been uniformly impressive. Against United in the last eight, they were sluggish and error-prone. Had United been better, they would have scored in both games.
Here, though, Liverpool played so well and offered such a constant threat that Barcelona’s key players reached deep inside to produce performances appropriate to a game of such high stakes.
Messi was destructively brilliant when his moment came, and Suarez played on the edge of legality. He is always somewhere near his best when his blood is up and here you could almost smell it.
So, Liverpool gave their best but came up short. Klopp may regret asking Joe Gomez to start his first game since December, while the absence of striker Roberto Firmino, who is not fully fit, was cruel. But it was a former Barcelona manager, Louis van Gaal, who noted recently how scorelines can warp judgment. People look at results and not performances, he said, and he was right. This was a 3- 0 defeat that could have been something else entirely and we can be almost certain that Klopp’s team will score in next week’s return leg.
On this evidence, though, the chances of a clean sheet are low. Don’t hold your breath for a miracle.