Match data from WhoScored, except average position from the SofaScore app.
"Football is a funny old game" doesn't come close to satisfying. Football is fucking hilarious sometimes.
Liverpool just beat Barcelona 4-0. In a Champions League semi-final. After losing 0-3 a week ago. Without Mohamed Salah or Roberto Firmino. Or Naby Keïta. With Andy Robertson going off through injury at half time, requiring 33-year-old James Milner to play nearly a full half there. Without Sadio Mané taking a single shot.
Divock Origi – with all of five starts going into this, sent out on loan last season, nearly sent out of loan or sold this January – scored the opening goal and winner. Gini Wijnaldum – with all of three goals going into this game, horrific as a #9 last week, coming off the bench only because Luis Suarez kicked Robertson out of the match – scored the second and third.
You cannot make this stuff up sometimes.
True, a lot of what we saw is what we've seen Liverpool do well all season. The first goal's capitalizing on an opposition mistake. The second's pressing and full-back crosses. The third's a cross. The fourth's a set play.
That's what Liverpool does. That's what Liverpool wanted to do on Tuesday, what Liverpool needed to do on Tuesday. That's how Liverpool have won matches since August.
But as much as 0-3 in the last leg lied, 4-0 in this does.
Two-legged xG map for Liverpool - Barcelona
— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) May 7, 2019
Both legs were the same story -- not complete dominance like the score suggested, but the home team was better and all the finishing went the same direction. Overall basically even, but that's not what made it a classic. pic.twitter.com/nDdg9BsPxi
Between 1-0 and 2-0, Barcelona had the better chances. Matip's last millisecond tackle on Messi in the 16th minute, denying a near-certain goal. Alisson saving Jordi Alba's clear-cut chance just before the interval and then Suarez's clear-cut chance in the 51st minute. The Brazilian stopped five Barcelona shots on-target; he made just two saves in the last leg.
That said, Barcelona took just eight shots on Tuesday. Lionel Messi took five of them, and created three chances for the others. Being a one-man team is incredibly difficult, even when you're the best player ever. There's precedent for Barcelona's collapse – you could see Roma on every Barca player's face after Wijnaldum's first goal – and it probably doesn't help that seven of Barcelona's starting XI is 30 or older – Messi, Suarez, Pique, Rakitic, Alba, Busquets, and Vidal. Incidentally, both of Liverpool's first two goals started from mistakes from one of those 30-year-olds: Jordi Alba, with a misplayed header to release Mané for the first, pressed out of possession by Alexander-Arnold for the second.
Take your damn chances and you'll probably win the damn game. Force the opposition into more mistakes than you make and you'll probably win the damn game.
Sometimes football's simple. And sometimes man plans and Liverpool laughs.
There's this season's Liverpool. The fucking mentality giants. The side with 30 goals in the final 15 minutes of matches, the most prolific 15-minute period for this side this season. Late winners against PSG, United, Palace, Fulham, Tottenham, Southampton, Newcastle, and now Barcelona – at least kinda sorta, if not technically. The side who's won eight straight in the league to keep pace with a City side that's won 12. The side who'll finish with the most league points in Liverpool history.
And there's Liverpool in Europe.
Liverpool are the only team to have beaten both Barcelona and Real Madrid by four goals in the 21st century.
— Richard Jolly (@RichJolly) May 8, 2019
Olympiakos. Istanbul. Dortmund. Barcelona. We can go back farther – it is "five times," after all – but let's stick with recent memory.
June 1st will see Liverpool's third European final in Jürgen Klopp's fourth season.
Sometimes sport is pain. As we're all well aware. But, sometimes, we are inevitable.
1 comment :
Liverpool players fitness again is a sight to behold. The players were gassed in the second half of the Europa league final and clearly the domestic league form suffered last year. The work of the ex Bayern fitness coach (Kornmeyer) and the ex Bayern nutritionist (Noma?) have been two great unheralded signings (in addition to Klopp and Edwards).
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