Barcelona Learn Valuable Lessons in Painful Liverpool Beating

WEMBLEY STADIUM, London — There was something quite refreshing about seeing Barcelona take a battering.

Not in a vindictive way, not because it’s something to mock them for and not because they deserve it for usually being so irritatingly good. It’s just because it’s something you don’t get to see very often.

Like finding a four-leaf clover or witnessing an eclipse, this was an interesting event, even if it can be forgotten about in the long run. Players such as Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez are barely accustomed to being in losing positions, let alone kicking off at 3-0 down against an opponent still hungry for more.

Although manager Luis Enrique said after Saturday’s game that the result hurts, the 4-0 beating at the hands of Liverpool will prove more useful for the coach than either the 3-1 win over Celtic or 4-2 victory against Leicester City in their previous pre-season friendlies.

The Asturian spoke after the game and wasn’t happy, but he acknowledged the matchup was not between two teams at the same point in their preparations. He said, per Javier Giraldo of Sport: 

It hasn’t been our best performance. When [the] errors are clear as we made today, and the pace is so different between the teams, there’s no way to compete. The difference in the number of games and training between the two teams is clear and this game served as the first minutes for some [of our] players.

The good news is that all are well physically and not injured. We have more than enough time for the players to reach full fitness and I have no doubt that they will be back to their best. It’s a defeat that hurts because the result is unusual. Surely it will be difficult to reproduce the same result this coming season, but we must accept it.

The coach cut an angry figure on the touchline, although his scruffier-than-usual clothes weren’t exactly indicating complete professionalism to his players. At least the shorts he wore against Celtic didn’t make a comeback.

Whereas the sensations were overwhelmingly positive in their first two pre-season friendlies, this was a long walk off a short pier for Barcelona. They started at a slower speed than Liverpool, and while the Reds moved up through the gears, the Blaugrana toiled.

Yet despite not playing well, they still created chances that, on another day, could have won them the game. Suarez’s brilliant no-look through ball for Messi ended up with the Argentinian shivering Simon Mignolet’s woodwork. Both Arda Turan and Munir El Haddadi had near misses that probably should have ended up in the back of the net.

Suarez, playing against his …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com