Madrid: Ernesto Valverde wanted to keep Barcelona’s feet on the ground after their 3-0 win over Liverpool so he hit his players where it hurt.
“Liverpool are a team that can make any opponent suffer,” he said in the press conference after the match. “And of course last year we had a three-goal advantage in the quarterfinals. And we were knocked out.”
Valverde knows that loss to Roma still rankles with his players, barely a week passing without one of them referencing the game that defined their season last year and could yet shape this one too.
The tie looked over after a 4-1 thrashing at Camp Nou only for a 0-3 loss in Rome to complete one of the great Champions League comebacks and send the Italians into the semis.
That Real Madrid went on to win the tournament for a fourth time in five years rubbed salt into the wound. But it was not just that Barca had fallen short, for a third consecutive year. It was the way they had thrown it away.
“We feel like there is this scar,” Clement Lenglet told this agency, Monday. “That match did us some harm. We want to erase that and have a beautiful season to forget it. We want to soothe the scar.”
Thirteen months on, Liverpool will hope the doubt that lingers and, perhaps, the pressure to make amends can help them pull off what would surely be the club’s most remarkable turnaround since the 2005 final in Istanbul.
However, Valverde doesn’t want to give the Reds any chance. “We have no reason to be complacent,” Valverde said. “The result is good (first leg), I have no doubt about that, but the tie is still open.”
Liverpool are stronger than Roma were. They have scored three or more goals 19 times this season, against opponents like Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Arsenal and Porto. An early goal Tuesday at Tuesday and belief would surge.
But Barcelona are stronger too and another collapse, even against a team as dangerous as Liverpool, would be an even greater surprise.
Valverde’s team have been very convincing this season, almost faultless since February with 14 wins in 17 games, the two draws and a single defeat coming only after key players were rested.
“We have the advantage of being champions already,” Valverde said. “Of course we will try to use it.”