Champions League: Barcelona 3-0 Liverpool, 5 men who won the game for Barcelona

#3 Arturo Vidal

The Chilean was a surprise addition to the Barcelona team on the night. Arthur had been brilliant for Barcelona in the middle of the park and had successfully kept Vidal away from the starting eleve. However, Valverde felt the need for the Chilean in the middle of the park against a tenacious Liverpool side and minutes into the game, it looked like a very good decision.

Vidal was fierce on the field, fighting for every ball and refusing to allow the Liverpool midfield any time or space on the ball. His tremendous work rate caught Liverpool off guard, who could not deal with the Chilean at all. Vidal was as effective going forward as he was tracking back and perhaps covered every single blade of grass on the ground. Whenever Barcelona lost the ball, he dropped down to help his defense out, and ensured that the home side were never caught out of position.

With the ball at his feet, Vidal was decisive, dictating the tempo to suit Barcelona and playing long balls to torment Liverpool. In fact, it was from his cross field ball to Coutinho that Barcelona created the first goal.

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Deepungsu is a veteran football journalist who has been covering daily transfer roundups and news for over six years at Sportskeeda. He has written close to 9000 articles for the website, and has garnered over 19.5Million reads.

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Inspired by Diego Maradona, Deepungsu played as an attacking midfielder for his local club at subdivision level in his initial years and scored an important goal or two. However, his all-time favorite footballer is Lionel Messi, and evidently, he feels Argentina's glory in 2022 is his favorite FIFA World Cup moment for fulfilling his long-standing dream. He is also an ardent East Bengal fan.

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Edited by Jong Ching Yee