Barcelona defender Gerard Pique has spoken in length about what went wrong for his side against Liverpool on that now famous Anfield evening.
A few weeks back, Liverpool overturned a 3-0 first-leg defeat to the Catalan giants with a stunning and very deserved 4-0 victory – much to the amazement of the footballing world.
As a result, we’re facing Spurs in the Champions League Final in eight days’ time, while Barcelona, despite winning La Liga and competing in the Copa del Rey Final this weekend – feel like their season has been a disappointment.
Pique reckons Barca’s capitulation was threefold. Firstly, our opening goal set the tone, which was capitalised upon by our sublime high-press and confirmed by the power of Anfield.
“When something like this happens, everything or almost everything has gone wrong,” Pique told El Pais. “I think that on a mental level, some people were affected by what happened in Rome because we had it very recently.
“With the first goal, which was very fast, unconsciously you see the image of Rome.
“Then two more came very quickly and it looked too much like what happened a year ago. Surely it was a mental block, but football was also missing.
“And they pressed very high, very intense, Anfield also played his role, we were not able. Sometimes happens. It was a very hard day.”
Liverpool’s semi-final win was not a snatch and grab job. We were arguably the better side at Camp Nou, but succumbed to the genius of Lionel Messi and didn’t take our chances.
At home though, we buried our opportunities and kept the greatest player of all time quiet – while dominating their centre-backs without Mo Salah or Roberto Firmino on the field.
Now we have to put in the same kind of performance against Mauricio Pochettino’s more tactically aware whites.