'Seem to have upset a few fans' - Liverpool got last laugh after 'cringe' Rio Ferdinand moment Gary Lineker refused to apologise for

As Lionel Messi squared the ball to Ousmane Dembele, he only had Alisson to beat. But somehow, someway, the Frenchman, who had Gerard Pique queuing up behind him, scuffed his shot and the Liverpool goalkeeper collected the ball.

Referee Bjorn Kuipers immediately blew the full-time whistle and it was immediately forgotten. Indeed, the Barcelona players and fans didn’t care about Dembele’s miss. For they had just dispatched Liverpool 3-0 in the Champions League semi-final first leg at the Camp Nou courtesy of a Messi masterclass. The 98,299 in attendance had witnessed a genius at work and the Spanish side had one foot in the Champions League final.

A Luis Suarez first half finish was followed by a Messi second half goal before the Argentinian curled a sensational 25-yard free kick into the top right hand corner. It was poignant that this cracker was Messi’s 600th goal for the club.

In truth, Liverpool had been extremely unlucky and only a string of Marc-Andre ter Stegen saves, the woodwork, heroic defending and some inept finishing had prevented the Reds from getting a result.

The British press couldn’t have been more equivocal however that the tie was over and there would be no appearance in Madrid for the Champions League final. ‘Messi mauls Klopp’, ‘Messed up’, ‘Messi’s 600th goal floors Liverpool’, ‘left in a right Messi’ and ‘Reds left raw in Lionel’s den’ were just a selection of headlines on the back pages the following morning.

Liverpool had come into the game on a 19-game unbeaten run and had already beaten Bayern Munich and Porto in their run to the semi-final. Klopp made some bold selection calls ahead of the clash as Joe Gomez was preferred over Trent Alexander-Arnold for his first start since breaking a