Luis Suarez has admitted that he did not want to leave his home for weeks following Barcelona's 4-0 defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League semi-final second leg last season.
The former Liverpool star had scored for Barcelona in the first leg to give the Catalans a comfortable 3-0 lead heading into the clash at Anfield.
What followed in the second leg will never be forgotten, with Jurgen Klopp's side scoring three second-half goals to dismantle the Catalans in ruthless fashion as the Reds recorded one of the greatest comebacks in Champions League history.
Speaking on the subject in detail for the first time, Suarez told the Daily Mail: "It was days, weeks, that we who loved to take the kids to school, football, activities, we suffered ... I did not want to leave from home after losing. It was very complicated. I really had a bad time, like most of my team-mates.
"We had already learned the previous year that we could have such a 3-0 result in our favour, but football has that. We knew how Anfield was going to be and how tight the stadium was, I told the teammates and everything. It is not necessary to take away merits from Liverpool, which pushed the fans. In five minutes they had two situations, at 15 minutes they already won and that enters you, it generates a nervousness.
"Then you see that a teammate loses the ball, another loses two more balls, and that leads you to an awkward situation until in the second half it goes out as it came out. The Champions League has that, if you go out 30 seconds relaxed, they pass you by. At the group, institutional level and as a human being this kind of defeat is suffered."
Barcelona had crashed out of the Champions League knockout phases in similar fashion the year before, losing 3-0 to AS Roma in the quarter-final second leg to squander a seemingly unassailable 4-1 advantage secured at Camp Nou.
Liverpool, on the other hand, took the momentum from that game to claim a convincing 2-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur in the final in Madrid.
Leo Nieboer
