Joel Matip talks about the Barcelona team and the moment when he knew that Liverpool would reach the Champions League final



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Joel Matip has singled out Gini Wijnaldum’s second as the moment he knew Liverpool would reverse their deficit and beat Barcelona to reach the Champions League final last season.

The Reds welcomed La Liga giants on May 7 last year trying to reverse a 3-0 loss from the first leg at Camp Nou a week earlier.

A Liverpool team without Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino took the field 363 days ago to try to achieve one of the best returns in the history of European football.

And after Divock Origi scored a first game, some felt Jurgen Klopp’s team could achieve the unthinkable as they entered halftime 3-1 down the aggregate.

However, the Reds still needed three more in the second period to advance against a team that contained Lionel Messi, Philippe Coutinho and Luis Suárez.

Matip has cheered up during the halftime interval and said Wijnaldum’s double substitute gave him the belief that they could advance to the final against all previous odds.

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The central said Liverpoolfc.com: “It was positive at halftime, but everyone knew we couldn’t do one percent less.

“Even if we played well in the first half, we had to do more. We have to do the same things, we cannot do less, and everyone had to be there to have this opportunity.”

“I think after Gini’s first it was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to win this game’ because we played well. After his second, I thought, ‘Okay, today we can do it.’

“But you never know because you know who you’re playing against and you don’t even have to play badly, these forwards can have a magical moment and they can score.”

With Liverpool still needing a quarter to avoid overtime, it fell to Origi to provide the finishing touch after a quick corner kick by Trent Alexander-Arnold who has since fallen into Anfield folklore.

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Matip recalls his point of view of the iconic target saying that he had not yet reached the penalty area due to the speed with which the Alexander-Arnold corner was swept by Origi to score.

“He was slowly on his way to the box, so in the center back style he was slowly going back and forth!” He recalls.

“I thought maybe in 20 seconds there would be a corner coming in or something like that; I went ahead and had a good view of the whole situation.”

“It was crazy. I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t know what had happened because he had just put the ball in. I thought, ‘What is this?’ Then I saw Divock there and the ball in the net after …

“I was a little confused, to be honest. But after a few seconds, everyone was celebrating, so I joined. “

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Liverpool FC essential news

After the game, Klopp and his players joined forces to greet Kop for their support, but Matip missed the celebrations after being selected for the post-match drug test with Barça star Messi.



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