Lionel Messi feared Barcelona’s Anfield embarrassment was coming, and told Liverpool everything

What did I actually know? Maybe nothing more than he’d put one on a plate for a teammate who had wasted the opportunity quite spectacularly. Maybe it was another lung-busting run which had finally took the wind out of his sails after another glorious evening in Catalan which surely put his club on the road to a Champions League final, just as he’d said he would.

Or maybe he knew that his team had scored three goals in a first-leg the previous season and completely crumbled away from home in the Italian capital. The most likely answer was in fact Anfield, and that going there with as much of a cushion as possible would be the only way to stop something unbelievable happening once again.

Whatever the explanation for Lionel Messi, crumbling into a heap on the Camp Nou turf after Ousmane Dembélé’s gloriously wasted opportunity in the dying stages of his teams 3-0 demolition job over Liverpool this time last year, it now carries so much more context.

Messi looked like his team had gone 1-0 down in injury-time as opposed to brushing aside a wasted effort in a game so well won. But his reaction said something about what was already in Barcelona’s head for the return.

They would face a Liverpool team without Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah and still wilt under the pressure of the Anfield night air and all it brings. The reasons why become all the more baffling when you look at names the caliber of Messi, Luis Suárez , Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets lining up against the Reds that night.

Messi is a perfectionist, and even though he probably knew 4-0 wasn’t a certainty, it was a marked difference to three and might just have left Liverpool collectively in consolation mode. As it was, Jürgen Klopp was able to sell to his team they had a chance.

We might never be able to find out what went through Messi’s mind as Dembélé squandered his golden opportunity. It could have been nothing more than the denial for a crowning glory on an otherwise wonderful night. But maybe, just maybe, a thought quickly flashed through his mind as Alisson Becker collected the ball. A random blur of yellow and red, a future projection of a corner taken quickly.