Barcelona 1, Liverpool 2 (D,Post)

Feb 22 2007 by Ian Doyle at the Nou Camp

IF this is what brandishing a golf club does for your team, maybe Rafael Benitez should have his players down the driving range before every game.

Last week, Craig Bellamy and John Arne Riise were at the centre of a flare-up on a stormy final evening of Liverpool’s training camp in Portugal.

But last night at the Nou Camp, the duo helped restore the squad’s battered reputation by both finding the target as Benitez’s side take a massive stride into the quarter-finals of the Champions League with victory at holders Barcelona.

The Anfield outfit had decamped to the Algarve for five days to prepare for an occasion that, with interest in the domestic cup competitions long ended and a Premiership challenge now a pipe dream, had become their most important fixture of the season.

And not even the unseemly end to their Iberian stay could detract from the fact all their hard work paid off as, propelled by Benitez’s tactics and an immense show of character, Liverpool came from behind to extend their proud unbeaten record at the Nou Camp.

Before the game Benitez had insisted his team would not solely sit back and defend, but they weren’t left with much option during a tortuous opening quarter in which Barcelona, having forged ahead through Deco’s header, threatened to run riot.

But Liverpool stemmed the tide and, with Jamie Carragher’s magnificent defending proving both foundation and inspiration, worked their way back into the game as Bellamy nodded in just before the interval. He celebrated with a swing of an imaginary golf club – a routine which bookmakers William Hill had offered odds of 100-1 that he would do before the match.

It deflated Barcelona, who never recovered from conceding the away goal. And Liverpool’s memorable comeback was made complete on 74 minutes when Bellamy turned creator to tee up Riise – the man he had allegedly threatened only five days earlier – to ram home.

Some pundits had called for Bellamy to be sacked after the revelations of that karaoke session emerged. But his inclusion last night suggests Benitez has pardoned the Wales international for his latest misdemeanours – and how the striker repaid his manager’s faith.

Riise called it “destiny”. But the fates alone weren’t responsible for a Liverpool triumph that ranks among those achieved in the club’s long history in Europe.

So continues Benitez’s hold over the Nou Camp. The Spaniard enjoyed an unbeaten record on three visits to the Catalan heartland with Valencia, but even he admitted last night’s triumph was particularly special.

But with Barcelona having proven their threat in attack, Benitez was right to warn the job is still far from finished. After all, Barca won 3-1 victory on their last Champions League visit to Anfield in 2001.