On February 21st 2007, Liverpool fans headed to Camp Nou perhaps expecting to see their team beaten.
Facing the reigning European champions, Rafa Benitez’s Reds were second-favourites against a side containing the likes of Lionel Messi and Ronaldinho.
However, Benitez usually had a plan for days like these, and that Wednesday in Catalonia was no different. With goals from Craig Bellamy and John Arne Riise, Liverpool registered a comeback last-16 win which remains one of their most impressive on-the-road European victories.
Got a horrible feeling Slot is going to keep Gakpo in the XI and drop Salah 😬 Who should be the front four vs Forest?
But although Bellamy and Riise found the net, the real hero of the night was arguably newly signed right-back Alvaro Arbeloa.
Making his first start for Liverpool, the now Real Madrid manager played at left-back, and was tasked with keeping the young Messi on a leash. Brilliantly, Arbeloa carried out Benitez’s instructions to a tee to deliver one of the great Reds’ debut displays.
Rafa Benitez looked to combat Messi’s left foot
Though he was only 19 at the time, Messi was already marking himself out to be one of Barcelona’s main men. Only Ronaldinho would score more than his 17 goals that season.
Benitez clearly knew this, and with Riise starting to creak as Liverpool’s regular left-back, the Spanish coach decided to stick his new right-back signing on the left of his defence.
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“Rafa put Alvaro Arbeloa on the left-hand side because Lionel Messi was playing on the right and always came on his left foot. That was a big play,” Boudewijn Zenden recalled to ESPN in 2017.
“Arbeloa is a good defender so he wasn’t asked to do any attacking as such. He was there to basically defend that side,” added first-team coach at the time Alex Miller.
According to Benitez’s former assistant manager Pako Ayesteran, the combination of both Arbeloa and Riise was put in place to add some defensive stability against Messi and ‘control the right wing.’
Anyone else getting that sinking feeling ahead of Sunday?
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“We knew the strength of Barcelona was in the middle of the park, especially with Messi playing on the right-hand side,” he told ESPN. “We played Arbeloa and Riise on the left to try to control the right wing. It was the area we were worrying about and in that game it worked.”
Arbeloa was an underrated Liverpool player
Throughout his two-and-a-half years with Liverpool, it was incredibly rare to see Arbeloa play at left-back again.
Despite Fabio Aurelio struggling to stay fit, and flop transfers such as Andrea Dossena arriving, Benitez chose to mainly stick with his countryman at right-back.
His full debut against Barcelona gave a sign of things to come, and Arbeloa was a model of consistency in what was a very good Liverpool team.
Having gone onto join Real Madrid, as well as being part of the Spain squad which won three consecutive international trophies, Arbeloa is one of the most underrated Liverpool players of the 21st century.
The Reds may have had Benitez’s quick-thinking to thank for neutralising Messi 19 years ago, but the hard work on the day was all done by Arbeloa.
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