Lionel Messi was knocked out of the Champions League by Liverpool on both occasions he faced them with Barcelona.
Alvaro Arbeloa has revealed how Lionel Messi made himself ‘easier’ to mark when the two locked horns in the Champions League with Liverpool and Barcelona.
Messi has won two and lost two of his four competitive meetings with the Reds, but was knocked out of the Champions League on both occasions. A 4-0 victory at Anfield clinched the most famous of comebacks against the Catalans in the semi-finals back in 2019, while Liverpool progressed on away goals thanks to a 2-1 win at Camp Nou when the two met in the round of 16 in 2007.
Arbeloa had only joined the Reds from Deportivo La Coruna in a £2.6m deal in January 2007, and was memorably handed a baptism of fire when handed his full debut for the club up against Messi at Camp Nou. Keeping the forward quiet across both legs of the tie, what made the Spaniard’s performance even more impressive was that he played at left-back as opposed to in his favoured right-back berth.
Reflecting on facing Messi with Liverpool, Arbeloa has revealed how Rafa Benitez set his side up to get the better of Barcelona. And with the Argentine only 19 at the time, the 2014 World Cup winner, who is now a youth coach at Real Madrid, also shared how his famed opponent made it ‘easier’ to keep him quiet.
“We played that day with me at left-back,” Arbeloa told the Coaches’ Voice. “Two strikers up front, although (Dirk) Kuyt played a bit further back. (John Arne) Riise usually played at full-back, but that day played ahead of me.
“That day, I had to mark Messi. I remember it perfectly. Rafa Benitez came to training one day in Liverpool and he told me that I was going to play left-back to mark Messi.
“Rafa saw clearly that he was a player who tended to go inside, and he thought that I could do well in that position – which was new for me. It was also my debut in the Champions League and before it, we went to Portugal for a mini-training camp where we prepared for the game.
“The main difference from the Messi I marked that day to a few years later, was that then Messi would almost always receive very, very wide which made it easier for me to mark. Not quite man-to-man, but by dropping a lot in my zone and almost letting him receive on the wing.
“That made it easier for me to be very close to him, and I also had Riise’s defensive help throughout. I think I remember that it was (Juliano) Belletti, the Barca right-back, who didn’t overlap a lot in that tie. He was quite an attacking player, but he didn’t overlap much so I always had Riise’s help.
“Maybe the difference in the later version of Messi, who was obviously still as good, was that he started in a freer role and came to receive more in the square (between defenders) or dropped further back to receive. That made it very difficult for an opponent to get as close to him as I was in that game.”
Arbeloa continued: “What Rafa wanted was for me to always let him receive the ball on the flank. He wasn’t too worried about Messi coming out wide, because he came out on his right foot – and that’s what we tried to do in that tie, which went very well.
“We won 2-1 in Barcelona, and even though they beat us 1-0 in Liverpool, we managed to eliminate a Barcelona team that had been European champions the year before.
“One of the things that also worked in my favour in this case when I was marking Leo Messi, and something that I insist on a lot with my players, is that Leo always tended to ask for the ball into his feet. I wasn’t worried that he would look to get in behind me.
“He wasn’t a player who would come and ask for the ball and then break into the space behind. That made it easier for me to stay on top of him, and I didn’t mind jumping whenever he went.
“If Leo dropped, I could go because there wasn’t that threat in behind and because Riise was also there. Sometimes, even if I pushed up a lot with Leo, he would drop and cover my position.
“Another of the instructions that Rafa gave us was when to leave him. That’s one of the most important things when you are marking a player. In the second half Leo tried to get out a lot.
“The main difficulty when you release is to know if another player is going to pick him up. If I stayed with him but then he goes and goes, I had to communicate with Momo (Sissoko), in this example, so that he can get to him. If Momo has dropped, I never worried about following him because I always had Riise to help.
“In this case, we were almost a double full-back, and he covered me a lot in this position. So even if it wasn’t a man-marking job in theory, in reality it pretty much was.”