Re: Liverpool Thread
If Messi is so brilliant why did Barca get beat by Betis and Athletico? (recently) Are you honestly saying Liverpool aren't able to beat Barcelona over two legs? pfft.
Barcelona is the best team in the world right now IF the best eleven is fit to play. If Barcelona loosses Messi, Iniesta, Xavi or Etoo, the team lowers down a lot. But first, barcelona has to be fit and have luck to win bayern and liverpool has to beat chelsea. I'm not that confident all that happens, football is quite random sometimes.
But, speculating about a Pool- Barça round, IF Barcelona has everyone fit, I find it difficult for Liverpool to win. I've seen a lot of EPL and Liga matches this season, and while Gerrard, Torres and Mascherano are playing really well, they haven't faced a team like Barcelona before.
Mascherano and all the Liverpool defense overall is good at pressing people and closing spaces, but Barcelona never lets you do this, the ball is constantly moving away from defenders until there is unbalance. And then there's also Alves. You need 3 or 4 defenders to stop Messi and Alves, so the rest of the team find gaps easily. Right now barça is scoring 3 goals average and defending really well. To counter this, Liverpool should play perfect defense for 180 minutes against the most skilled forwards, and while that is perfectly possible, I think you're underestimating Messi anyway. Messi was impressive 2 years ago, but this year he's become something really godly. If he's fit, you CAN'T stop him.
We lost against Espanyol and Atletico because some key players were not fit at all (Messi, Iniesta, Abidal and Puyol) and because of some fishy referee decisions, but since Messi, Iniesta and Etoo were fit again, we have been hammering rivals again.
That said, it would be nice to win Liverpool, as we lost 2 years ago when that barça team was being torn apart by Deco and Ronaldinho and a terrible performance of the keeper at home. Right now, Barça is far better as a team than it was by then.
And lastly... I would love to go to Anfield and see the match!!! I love Anfield (have been there twice and both times we won, even if the last time we got eliminated overall), I love the way football is lived there in your island, so I'm glad our next rival (if we can get past Bayern) would be an English one!
PS: I'm off to watch Liverpool-Aston Villa. Hope you win it and put some pressure on Man Utd, so good luck!!!