Technique must now be matched by physique and Klopp’s side used old English virtues to blow away a decadent BarcelonaTalk all you want about great European nights. Talk of the swell of the crowd, the roaring emotion inside Anfield. Talk of St-Étienne and Olympiakos and Borussia Dortmund. Talk of glory and heart and implausible goalscoring heroes, of Fabinho’s energy, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s wit and Jordan Henderson doing it on one leg. All that played its part. But talk also of Barcelona’s impotence in the maelstrom, of the familiarity of their problems, and conversely of the way in which Jürgen Klopp has resurrected the great historical virtue of English football: its power.When a three-goal advantage is overturned, of course it is a...
The feeling persists that the club, as opposed to the fans, regard extra amounts of domestic silverware as merely ornamentalJust over three years ago, Leicester City were visitors at the Etihad when the worst-kept secret in European football was confirmed – Pep Guardiola had agreed to take over as Manchester City manager and would replace Manuel Pellegrini in the summer. By way of celebration City managed to get themselves trounced by a side on their way to winning the league. Any hopes Pellegrini and his players had of adding another title to the ones City won in 2012 and 2014 were ended by the Foxes’ rampant away form, just as Tottenham’s had been a few weeks earlier.Leicester were frequently unstoppable...
From U9s in parks to Pep Guardiola’s champions, no one person has had such a vast impact on a major sport’s footprint as Barcelona’s superstarThere was some consolation this week for anyone feeling a little maxed-out by the relentless individual brilliance of Lionel Messi. We have at least found something he isn’t good at on a football pitch. It turns out Messi isn’t very good at punching Fabinho in the head.Frankly, he’s terrible at it. The TV replays showed Messi doing something along these lines at the Camp Nou just before that mind-bending free-kick goal. Fabinho looked stunned at the time, but perhaps he was just shocked by the nature of the blow, a slappy, wristy thing executed with laughably...
Attacking Barcelona is not wrong given it can unsettle them but it leaves teams exposed and Liverpool found that can be fatalContemplating his side’s Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City last season, Jürgen Klopp said that to sit back and look to absorb pressure against such a side was in effect to try to “win the lottery”. Against the very best, he believes there is no point – at least for a team of Liverpool’s ability – in curling up like a hedgehog and hoping the threat somehow goes away. He vowed to attack, and did, and his reward was three goals in an extraordinary 20-minute spell that settled the tie before half-time in the first leg. Related: Incomparable Messi...
The Champions League semi-final against Barcelona will pit two generations of Anfield attackers against each otherLiverpool will cost themselves some money should they reach the Champions League final at Barcelona’s expense – one of the add-ons to Philippe Coutinho’s transfer fee of £105m just over a year ago was an extra £4.5m should the Catalans win the event this season.Financial considerations apart, it should be quite the reunion when Jürgen Klopp’s side arrive at the Camp Nou on Wednesday. Liverpool were not only responsible for showcasing Coutinho’s talents in a manner that made him irresistible to Barcelona, they did exactly the same with Luis Suárez four years earlier, again making an impressive profit on a player they signed relatively cheaply....