Liverpool celebrate great 4-goal Champions League comeback to reach final

Anfield was Anfield … Everything that soccer mythology assigns to the Liverpool stadium was confirmed on Tuesday in a night that this sport will not forget. English football, less. The epopéyico happens to the end of the Liverpool cuts the Spanish hegemony and reinstalls it in the top, even with the outstanding end. Anfield was Anfield … Once there, the 55,000 spectators Reds ignored the 0-3 of the first leg, ignored the hardships of the injuries of Salah and Firmino, did not think of Messi or Suárez and generated a colossal climate, an atmosphere almost unbreathable for Barcelona. Fans, players, coaching staff, together created an environment of fabulous positivism. And that goal by Origi at 6 minutes definitely made it a lovely hell. Everyone got the “we’re going to win” from our criollo fans. And they went and won. An unimaginable 4 to 0. For the resounding marker of the first leg and for the performance of Messi at the Camp Nou.

It is the matchless wonder of football. A powerful club, with 29 years without winning a league, 14 without a Champions and 13 without an English Cup, which comes from being thrashed and is about to lose one more tournament on Sunday at the hands of Manchester City, fixes everything in one night . He recovers his prestige, his self-esteem and happiness in 90 minutes.

When a team enters the field with morale so high, there is undisputed merit from their coach. We never saw a brave team with a faint-hearted technician. This is achieved in the week, in the group and individual talks, in the confidence that the commander gives to his troops. Jürgen Klopp put on the lawn eleven gladiators plotted for the feat. And, in addition, a plan: to drown the Barcelona in every centimeter of grass and to leave fast in attack. I had already achieved this in large lapses in Catalonia. Now it was sharper. Barça came to the game with six days off, Liverpool with three, it seemed the other way around. Klopp is a great counselor, his teams say it; nevertheless, it came badly with the decks for some time. On Tuesday he made aces poker.

That goal of Origi in the first of the two serious failures of Jordi Alba left Alebilla to Barcelona, ​​because to the embarrassment of the own mistake was added the implacable advantage of others. And right there the psychological and football balance was tilted. Already saw a dominant team, warrior, grown, who did not think about the 0-3 of the first leg but that each move could end in goal, that the comeback was possible. And Anfield started firing lava …

Opposite, a Barcelona surprised, overcome, as mentally blocked. It happened what sometimes: when it hits a fast team, with great physical vigor, which anticipates and imposes a strong rhythm and presses it, it loses midfield, because Busquets and Rakitic are thinking men but slow. They were devastated. And without midfield the Barcelona walks on crutches; everything originates there. That partly determined the defensive fragility and the lack of support for the front. He broke it in the middle of Liverpool and divided it into watertight compartments.

That confusion was manifested in the four goals. The Barca defense had a nightmare night. It was not that they were brilliant Liverpool attacking moves, but Barcelona’s mistakes, like the last one: a corner in which Alexander Arnold was going to finish, then he left the ball and the Barça players relaxed, Arnold returned to the corner, He kicked fast into the area and found only Origi, who, as he came, rammed it into a high angle. A goal of neighborhood, of campito, not of first division. In the third, Piqué and Lenglet, of extraordinary game air both, were screwed in a center and Wijnaldum, in the middle of them, jumped alone and nodded to the goal. The other two were born from a header back from Jordi Alba who captured Mané and a lost ball from the side that took the team to the forefoot when he was leaving. In the four, the percentage of own responsibility of the defenses was of 70 or 80%

When he went down 0-3, Ernesto Valverde took Coutinho out immediately. He knew better than anyone that he was playing with ten. His mistake was to continue to include him. The Brazilian midfielder was of an alarming softness and indolence. To make things worse, every time he touched the ball he was whistled by the local audience, who does not forgive his treacherous departure from the club to Barcelona. And he is not a player who rebels before adverse circumstances. Coutinho maybe closed his ticket for Barcelona. It is, without a doubt, the worst signing in the history of this sport for its price (160 million euros) and its performance, very poor. And now, a year and a half later, it will cost to place it even for 50. Who would be willing to pay such a large fortune for a sunken player, who comes from a great failure and who weighed his shirt …? That also has a superstar contract. Barcelona can not give you more time. People would not admit seeing him enter the field more. Upstairs, when he scored a goal three weeks ago, he dedicated a magnificent gesture to the stands. A very complicated situation for the club and for him. Even for partners like Luis Suarez, who backed him against the winds and storms. Javier Miguel, editor of AS, condemned him without arabesques: “Coutinho has signed his death sentence as Barcelona player, he does not deserve to continue wearing this shirt, his match was indolence without pleasing a player of his level.” Goodbye and even never . ”

The other star pass, Dembélé, could not play to be injured for the sixth time in two seasons. But he left a bad taste in the mouth: in the 96th minute of the first leg, Messi left him alone to score what would have been 4-0, and he squandered it when he finished with indifference. That goal could have changed everything.

In fact, Liverpool deserved the long final. After 180 minutes it was too superior to Barcelona. He had returned from Spain without understanding how he had lost 3 to 0 after having been in charge of the game for long periods, with Ter Stegen as a figure. The only reasons, in truth, were the feeling of Suárez’s score and the memorable performance of Messi, who in England was again the most resizable of the team: generated two situations of net goal that did not define either Alba or Suarez; All the advances azulgranas began. With Vidal they were the only ones who tried to build a raft in the middle of the shipwreck. Messi took him there with goals and genius, you just had to take care of the savings from 3 to 0. They did not know.

“Ridiculous”, “shame”, “shame” were some qualifiers that were shot in the Catalan press. But that Liverpool on Tuesday crushed any team. The already historic 4 to 0 renew the idyll with their fans for thirty more years. And update the liverpoolian legend.

Go to a final tribute to today’s football. This spectacle forty or fifty years ago was not even conceivable. You did not dream of playing like that. (OR)