‘They’re this team of beta-males looking to Lionel Messi’

Lionel Messi showed many why he's the greatest football player to ever tie up a pair of boots in Barcelona's Champions League first leg win over Liverpool.

Barcelona's all-time leading goalscorer scored a two-goal brace that gave the Catalans a commanding lead heading into the second leg at Anfield, and yet, Ernesto Valverde's side still found a way to bow out of this year's competition after squandering yet another three-goal lead. Barcelona had their chances in a very open game in Liverpool but Football Spin co-host Dion Fanning felt that the visitors ultimately looked like a side that deferred to Messi too much of the time.

Conan Doherty: Jordi Alba went straight through on goal and for some reason gave it to Messi who had to take it past a player. Dion Fanning: But that sums everything up. This team of beta-males looking to Messi and going 'no you do it. Please do it. You take care of this'. "The only other one is Suarez but that was an extraordinary moment to be in that position and say 'no, please Messi, please score, take the responsibility of the goal off my shoulders. I need you to do this for me'. "There has never been a scene of such utter emasculation on a football field. It was embarrassing. Jordi Alba should be so embarrassed by that moment that he asked Messi to score. I can't handle any of this. "Liverpool exposed that. They missed their chances in the first leg but they did expose that and getting the early goal helped. They just probed at that weakness and that failing and that lack of confidence."

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