MD17 - THE LEAGUE OF DEATH

MD17 – [1] LIVERPOOL V. [7] FC BARCELONA [1-3]
2020 MD07: BAR 2-2 LIV

LIV – Mohamed Salah [10] 26’
BAR – Clement Lenglet [1] 76’
BAR – Antoine Griezmann [7] 88’
BAR – Pedri Gonzalez [1] 90’+
LIV – Fabinho Tavares YC 66’

A lot of anticipation for this Monday Night clash at Anfield, Liverpool returned to the throne with a 3-1 victory over Chelsea last week, while Barca finally got back in the W column with a 2-0 result against Inter.

Still it did not bode well for Barca, this is Anfield after all, and Barca have tumbled to 7th from 3rd as recently as MD10. Mo Salah only added to this dread when he put the Reds up 1-0 in the 26th, the culmination of a torrid offensive run to open the match for Liverpool.

Barca turned it around in the 2nd half however and soon it was Liverpool struggling to generate chances, but Barca squandered many of theirs, Dembele shanked an open look badly in the 57th, while Griezmann became the poster boy for corrective laser surgery with his blast at the side of the net in the 68th.

Barca finally broke through in the 76th, an unlikely hero, Clement Lenglet, with a meager 7 appearances all season, unleashed a perfectly placed header, his first goal of the year, and we were even again.

At this point it was probably fair to assume a draw or even Liverpool finding the game-winner in the moments that remained, but that turned out to be dead wrong. Liverpool collapsed like a house of cards thereafter, like some curse befell them at the 76th, Barca proceed to cut them to ribbons as the Anfield faithful looked on in horror.

In the 88th Griezmann atoned for his misplaced earlier effort by blasting through the defense and firing from close range, beating GK Allison near side for a 2-1 lead. Falling behind did nothing to change Liverpool’s results with Pedri breaking his SL1 cherry in extra-time to seal the match at 3-1.

A tough loss to swallow for Liverpool, what exactly happened in the final 20 minutes is a head scratcher, but they will need to figure it out quickly. Time is a luxury no one in SL1 can claim where a voracious shark lurks around every corner, in Liverpool’s case, Atletico, Spurs, and Juventus trail them by a descending point each, i.e., 34-33-32-31.

So in theory, 4th place could be just a single match away, life is brutal at the top, but only pansies want it differently.

MD18: Liverpool at Inter; Barca face Atletico at the Wanda

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