Lionel Messi sat on the turf behind the goal, his arms outstretched. The Argentine attacker had just curled an unstoppable free kick past Allisson from almost 30 yards and the Camp Nou responded by belting out his name over and over again. “Messiiii, Messiii, Messsiii”.
In one moment, he had destroyed Liverpool’s best-laid plans. “The Camp Nou is just a stadium,” Reds manager Jurgen Klopp had said in the build-up to this Champions League semi-final first leg. “Quite big, but it’s not a football temple.”
But Messi makes it a temple. His temple. “Messi’s temple falls down on Klopp,” Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo said. Madrid-based daily AS went even further. “The Pope of football,” they called him on their front page.
Barcelona’s biggest crowd of the season certainly approved, a congregation of 98,299 witness to this latest exhibition. Up in the press box, Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand hugged and cheered. On the other side of the stadium, even some Liverpool fans applauded. Their team was well beaten, but beaten by brilliance at least.
With just over 15 minutes left, the Reds very much in it. At that point, Klopp’s side trailed by a Luis Suarez goal, the Uruguayan’s first in the Champions League this season and wildly celebrated against his former club.
But amid some anxious moments in the second half, Messi intervened. After Suarez had hit a shot against the bar with his knee, the Argentine was there to tap in the rebound. Simple stuff, yet he always seems to be in the right place at the right time.
“The second goal was probably not the nicest goal in the career of Lionel Messi,” Klopp said afterwards. “But it shows his skills that he’s there in that moment.”
And that is the thing: Messi is always there. Omnipresent, like a god. “D10S in his temple,” Sport headlined, inserting the Argentine’s number 10 where the ‘i’ and ‘o’ should be.
“Apart from that, we defended well,” Klopp said. And he was right. Reflecting on the free kick, the German added: “In these moments, he’s unstoppable.” Former Barca boss Pep Guardiola, watching on in the crowd, had once said something similar.
Ahead of the quarter-final second leg between Barca and Manchester United, Ole Gunnar Solskaer had claimed Messi could be stopped, but later rectified after the Argentine score twice in a 3-0 win. Playing like this, there is little to be done.
Because this Messi means business. Having hit the winner against Levante on Saturday to seal another league title for Barcelona on Saturday, the Argentine has his eyes firmly fixed on the major prize now. There is a passion about him, a determination.
Apart from his two goals, which took him to 600 career strikes for the Catalan club, the Argentine was full of running and won 15 of his 24 duels on the night. “That shows his commitment to the club and to his team-mates,” Barca boss Ernesto Valverde said afterwards. And also to the Champions League.
On May 1st last year, he and the rest of Barcelona’s players were on a bus tour to celebrate the club’s La Liga and Copa del Rey double with fans on the streets of the Catalan capital. But behind the smiles that day, there was frustration at having missed out on the greatest prize of all.
In the summer, Lionel Messi took over as captain as Andres Iniesta moved to Japan and the Argentine attacker told the fans at Camp Nou in August that he and his team-mates would do everything he could “to bring back the special trophy to Camp Nou”. A year on from ‘La Rua’, he has Barca on the verge of another final.
“It was spectacular how it went it,” Messi said of his free kick.
“It’s one of those games when everyone has to show up and Leo is the captain, the one who directs the play and the rhythm,” Barca boss Ernesto Valverde said afterwards.
Last season, in the 3-0 loss at Roma which saw Barca crash out of the Champions League on away goals, Messi cut an isolated figure, but he looks to have a better supporting cast this time around.
Marc-Andre ter Stegen produced several super saves, including impressive stops to deny Mohamed Salah and James Milner; Arturo Vidal charged around in midfield with boundless energy to win the ball back; Gerard Pique was imperious in defence; Jordi Alba set up the first goal and made it 17 assists for the season. They all contributed.
“Messi leads and we follow,” Ivan Rakitic had said in the pre-match press conference. And how he led. “He’s a show,” Vidal beamed after the game. “It’s incredible what he does on the pitch. He’s from another planet.”
And Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu wrote on Twitter: “Another achievement on an unforgettable night. A genius. A figure that will never be seen again in the world of football.”
It was 14 years ago to the day of Messi’s first Barca goal, scored against Albacete in La Liga on May 1st, 2005. Now he has 600 and Barca are on course for another treble, their third in his time at the club.
“Last year (against Roma) we also won by three (in the first leg),” Valverde warned. “It’s not over yet.”
But it should be. The feeling now is that Messi will not let this slip away. For Liverpool, it will be back to the Premier League and the prospect of perhaps ending this superb season without a trophy. For Leo and Barcelona, more history awaits.
