Maybe as a kid you didn't see the point in history class, reading up on all those men (and yeah, they were probably mostly men) of yesteryear, with their outdated ideas and senseless battles won and lost. Maybe you failed to see how events from centuries ago have any relevance to the here and now. And maybe that's why some annoyed teacher or parent quoted the philosopher George Santayana to you: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Ernesto Valverde was likely never told this. Or, if he was, he wasn't paying attention. There are few other explanations for what unfolded at Anfield on Tuesday night. Let's be very clear. This column focuses on Barcelona's deficiencies. It should in no way detract from the Herculean effort put out by Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool, from the way foot-soldiers like Divock Origi and Georginio Wijnaldum turned into game-changers and from the way an assembled sea of red and Scouse helped turn an implausible notion into real, live history through the sheer din of wanting it to happen. It was a night that will live on in Anfield lore. It was extraordinary. But so, too, was what happened to Barcelona, and not in a good way. Rewind 13 months, because this was a mashup of "Groundhog Day" and "Nightmare on Valverde Street." Ernesto Valverde's Barca roll to victory by a three-goal margin at the Camp Nou against Roma. The score should have been closer than it was -- Allison was in goal for the opposition -- and then, in the return leg, it all falls apart. Just like at Anfield. It's not just a symmetry of results and circumstances, it's a symmetry of events. - Ogden: Liverpool comeback tops any night Anfield's ever seen - Liverpool ratings: Origi, Fabinho top list of heroes vs. Barca - Barcelona ratings: Alba 3/10 as his mistakes start collapse - Social reaction: LeBron, Mourinho stunned by comeback Barcelona slumbered through the first few minutes and conceded a goal after misjudging a speculative ball down their left flank. At the Stadio Olimpico, it was Edin Dzeko after six minutes; at Anfield, Origi after seven. Galvanized by the early strike and spurred on by the crowd, Roma held an absurdly high defensive line and pressed the stuffing out of Barca's midfield, often engaging them in the opposing half. Pretty much like Liverpool on Tuesday night. They didn't score again until the second half but the marker was laid down: we will give everything and gamble by pressing in your half and daring you to hit balls over the top for Lionel Messi and Luis Suarez. It was a gamble -- of course it was -- and it put a strain on the central defenders. But Barcelona couldn't exploit it, whether because their strikers are now in their 30s and asking them to sprint 30 yards time and again isn't a great idea, or whether because the opposing defenders were that good on the night. Roma made it 2-0 just before the hour mark. Liverpool made it 2-0 and then 3-0 just before the hour mark. Valverde stared, helpless from the bench. In both scenarios, he was now a single goal away from elimination. So what did he do? Valverde was Barca manager during last season's stunning collapse against Roma. This year, he was helpless again and sat there watching Liverpool's comeback. Shaun Botterill/Getty Images Not much. In Rome, he waited actually until nine minutes from time to make his first change, Andre Gomes for an exhausted Andres Iniesta. At Anfield, he struck at the hour mark, taking off Philippe Coutinho for a full-back, Nelson Semedo, and moving Sergi Roberto into midfield. In Rome, a third goal conceded would have knocked out Barcelona on away goals so you can sort of see the logic: let's take off an attacking midfielder for a defensive one. In Liverpool, because the first leg had finished 3-0, there wasn't much to defend. Barcelona had to score or face the prospect of extra-time. Roma's winner came eight minutes from time, when Kostas Manolas caught Nelson Semedo napping at the near post. Liverpool's was 11 minutes from time, the difference being that at Anfield, it was the entire Barca defence that switched off and were punished by the trickery of Trent Alexander-Arnold and the coolness of Origi. Then, as now, a 60-something Bostonian billionaire owner laughed and rejoiced like he hadn't done since he made his first million. Maybe more so. It didn't take Nostradamus to predict how Klopp would approach the game: early gamble, high press and intensity, hope for a quick goal to get the crowd into it. Heck, he had the whole Roma blueprint from the year before. Maybe Valverde thought (wrongly) that Liverpool would do things differently, fine. But once he saw things unfold just as they had a little over a year ago, why not look for alternatives? Why not actually read the game and try something different? He might point out that, relative to the Roma game, Barca did create better chances and did force better saves from Alisson. But they also kept getting overrun in the middle of the park. For Andres Iniesta -- a non-factor in Rome -- read Coutinho at Anfield, bar from a single shot that was saved by Alisson. Arturo Vidal's wild man schtick fooled nobody, Ivan Rakitic was spending so much time helping Sergio Busquets (hampered by a first-half booking and the fact that he isn't the one-man gang he once was) that he was gassed when he got on the ball. And the less said about Jordi Alba's night, the better. A coach is on the sideline, all blame must be shared with the players. We get it. It's a footballing mantra. Nobody is exonerating the players: nine of them were in Rome too, you'd imagine they might have remembered what happened. But it's the coach's job to read and understand his players, to put the right ones out in conditions where they can best contribute even when they're having a bad day. And if circumstances change, find a more suitable approach. Or change the players. Valverde chose the wrong game plan, seemingly oblivious to what Liverpool would do, and when it wasn't working, he was slow to act. When he finally did act, he made the wrong choices. Sharing the blame with the players doesn't mean he gets a free pass, on the contrary. Frankly, neither does the club. When you have the second-highest wage bill in the universe and your reserve centerforward is Kevin Prince Boateng -- who only arrived in January, on loan from a mid-table Serie A side, is not a centerforward and is Kevin-Prince Boateng -- something is seriously wrong. It means either you believe Messi and Suarez -- who are 31 and 32, respectively -- are invulnerable to injury or suspension (and we know with the latter, that's not the case), which is foolish, or you believe that the rest of the team is so gifted that it doesn't matter, which is deluded. Maybe Valverde thought Ousmane Dembele would be around to provide fresh legs off the bench, even though in Rome he only sent him on in the final five minutes: wrong. Maybe he thought that against Grandpa James Milner, any old Malcom would do: wrong again. Maybe he thought Messi would load the whole kit and caboodle on his back, like he did in the first leg and at so many points in the season: wrong. (Messi spawns more miracles than anyone, but even his supply isn't limitless.) (Oh, and while we're at it: Suarez has not scored away from home in the Champions League since September 2015. That's 18 games and counting. To not have an alternative, or at least some help, other than the ubiquitous Messi, the ghost of Coutinho and Dembele, who has lasted 90 minutes just four times this season, plus of course Boateng and Malcom, boggles the mind.) Valverde may well go on to win the Double this season, just as he did last year. And just like last year, it will feel that little bit empty.<doc-sep>At the end Leo Messi collapsed to the floor and for a time he just lay face down on the grass, until a teammate eventually came and lifted him to his feet. Exhausted, he was barely able to breathe. Barely able to believe it, either. When at last he walked, the noise deafening as he headed towards the touchline, he was still wondering how it could have slipped through their fingers like that. This is not Anfield, this is the Camp Nou six days earlier. When Ousmane Dembélé scuffed the last kick of the first leg, producing a shot unforgivably bad, Barcelona led 3-0 but it felt like it mattered, which was telling in itself – and because it felt like it mattered, it did matter. Barcelona still did not feel safe; they had seen Liverpool up close and knew how good they were, Messi admitting to feeling “asphyxiated”. Deep down, they also knew of their own vulnerability. And they had been here before. Last season they went to Rome and saw a three-goal first-leg lead disappear. A year on, they saw another three-goal lead disappear, at Anfield. Neither was chance alone, neither occurred in isolation. Barcelona’s manager, Ernesto Valverde, has talked about experience and how you learn from it, but what if the lessons are the wrong ones? That it had happened before meant it shouldn’t happen again, forewarned is forearmed, but it might also have contributed to the doubt, fed their fears. It has certainly fed the fallout, deepened the pain; there was misfortune sure, but this is not a one-off. “What makes it hurt more is that it happened again,” Valverde said at Anfield. Rome had fed this entire season. At the start of it, Messi had talked about the thorn in their side, made something close to a vow to bring back that “lovely and desired cup”. The season was always going to be defined by Europe, the search for redemption. All of their emotional energy was invested in this. Judgment for this year and last; for the last four, in fact. But redemption didn’t come. Messi ended the first leg lamenting the failure to make it safe; he ended the second lamenting everything. Barcelona’s shell-shocked players fail to react as Divock Origi side-foots in the decisive goal. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian Barcelona might well win two doubles in a row under Ernesto Valverde, yet his time will be judged a failure. His time might also be coming to an end now. On Wednesday the president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, avoided offering an opinion while still emotional. “There will be time to reflect,” he said. Valverde, well liked, has rarely been over-popular, rarely been seen as a true believer and some of the criticism has been unfair; while what he has done should not be taken so lightly, few would be enraged if Bartomeu chose to change coach. Others doubt the president himself, seen as the architect of emptiness. Two successive failures as similar as this will surely undermine the players’ belief in Valverde and his ability to find solutions. Some of them will be gone too, if Barcelona can find buyers. Luis Suárez said that Valverde could not be blamed, that the players must take responsibility. There were bad errors that might have changed everything except the play itself: Dembélé in the first leg, one-on-ones for Coutinho and Suárez in the second, Messi cutting back rather than shooting, Jordi Alba’s header, that corner – which Valverde admitted even he didn’t see. “We were like kids,” Suárez said. “They can’t score two goals in a minute. We can’t make the same mistake two years in a row.” He also implied Barcelona had thought it was done and they “were not a team”. But the fact it was two in two suggested something deeper. It is possible they adapted too much to Liverpool, “drawn into their game” as Messi had put it after the first leg when they knew the score might have been better but might also have been significantly worse. El Mundo’s suggestions for European nights as bad as this also hinted at a problem more profound, more permanent: Munich 2013, Turin 2017, Rome 2018, it offered up. This is a fourth heavy away defeat in six years, in other words – and that was without counting the 4-0 in Paris. Barcelona have won one Champions League in eight years, despite having Messi. They have lost the last two like this. Once can be an accident, twice is careless, it’s said. On one level, this couldn’t be considered careless: Valverde insisted that the danger had not passed, and last year lingered to remind them. There were rotations in an attempt to avoid the physical collapse they felt they had suffered last season, after which Suárez had admitted that he regretted playing before that quarter-final. Just about the only player not protected at the weekend departed injured: Dembélé pulled up 25 seconds into Barcelona’s visit to Vigo. They could have used him on Tuesday night. But this failure suggests that there were flaws in that analysis, that seeing this in physical terms was mistaken, that the root cause was not found, that this may be more conceptual. Here the debate about Barcelona’s footballing identity is raised again, cutting to the core of their being; this is a club, some feel, that has lost its religion. And in times of pressure, when a team like Liverpool are thundering at you in all their fury, a clear identity, a defined model, offers refuge and security. Barcelona didn’t really have that shelter. When Messi announced that Barcelona wanted the European Cup publicly, in front of the fans, the pressure was raised. Asked how the other players reacted, Suárez said they reckoned that if he announced it, it was up to him to do it. He was joking, but watching them play sometimes it is tempting to conclude that that’s exactly how they think. Messi’s words were a vow, a promise, but on Tuesday he was unable to deliver on it. Nor was anyone else, but maybe they knew that already.<doc-sep>Should Valverde continue as Barcelona coach? Barcelona A MARCA debate after Liverpool's historic 4-0 win Barcelona's latest European collapse at Anfield leaves Ernesto Valverde's job up for questioning more than ever. Despite winning two LaLiga Santander titles in a row, consistent failings in the Champions League have many agitated, and he could pay the ultimate price. What do you think, should he continue as coach at the Camp Nou? Barcelona renewed Valverde's contract in mid-February for next season and one bad - however horrible - night should not change the structure of a club. They are within touching distance of another double, and despite two painful European exits, these have been two successful seasons. Smart decisions aren't based on emotions, even though their spirit is on the floor this Wednesday. Valverde has to continue because these players are better with him, he has earned his continuity and what was good yesterday cannot now be bad. You cannot take away their LaLiga Santander titles or Copa del Reys, but let's not fool ourselves. No big club in the world would keep a coach who has blown a 4-1 and a 3-0 lead in the quarter and semi-finals of the Champions League with Lionel Messi on the pitch. Add to that the fact that Barcelona have been worsening since his arrival, the arguments to keep him in his job fall flat. How can they approach their next Champions League knockout fixture with the same coach who oversaw two comebacks against them? It's not one match, it has happened twice.<doc-sep>
Philippe Coutinho is "not a Barcelona player" and will be the first casualty of their shambolic Champions League exit to Liverpool, while the board are set to meet to decide coach Ernesto Valverde's fate, sources have told ESPN FC. - Ogden: Liverpool comeback tops any night Anfield's ever seen - Hunter: Barca were the 'dopes' in shock loss at Liverpool - Liverpool ratings: Origi, Fabinho top list of heroes vs. Barca - Barcelona ratings: Alba 3/10 as his mistakes start collapse Sources also confirmed that a number of the coaching staff are disappointed with Coutinho's performances this season. The Brazilian is the club's record signing at €160 million but his displays against his former side across both legs of the semifinal strengthened the idea that his time at Camp Nou is up. "Coutinho is not a Barcelona player, that's been made clear," a club source told ESPN FC. The ex-Liverpool playmaker started the season well but his form and confidence have fallen off a cliff since an injury in October. He's been unable to re-find his best form since and the source bemoaned that "he has added nothing. He will leave in the summer." ESPN FC first revealed in March that Barcelona were ready to listen to offers north of €105m for Coutinho and his performances against Liverpool have done nothing to change their plans. He was taken off before the hour mark in both matches, jeered by Barca fans last week and Liverpool supporters on Tuesday. The Catalan club made a huge effort to sign him but there's now an acknowledgment that things have not worked out. While the reaction in the heat of the moment has seen Coutinho singled out inside the club, the board, headed by president Josep Maria Bartomeu, will try to deal with the fallout from the Liverpool loss in the coming days in a more cool-headed manner. Diario Sport called the 4-0 defeat the "biggest embarrassment" in the club's history and Bartomeu says there will be time to reflect on how they recover from a second successive European humiliation. They also surrendered a three-goal lead against Roma last year. "There will be time for a deep reflection and to give explanations," he said after the game. "There's a Copa del Rey final to play in three weeks [against Valencia on May 25]. "Last year, in Rome, the same thing happened and it's not easy to explain. We will try to do so internally. We have to pick ourselves up and apologise to all the Barcelona supporters." The board will talk in the coming days and Valverde's future will be up for debate. The former Athletic Bilbao boss has won back-to-back league titles but those who are most critical of him at the club point to the fact this is the second time in a year that Barcelona have chucked away a huge advantage. However, as suggested by Bartomeu, the board do not want to rush into making a decision. But there will be talks to see if they can respond to a question which they still don't have an obvious answer: who could replace Valverde? There are not many options available who would be capable of leading the required regeneration. Barcelona's starting XI at Anfield included seven players aged 30 or over. "We have to see how Valverde deals with this tricky situation," a club source said on Wednesday. "The fans are really upset and disappointed with what happened and on Sunday there's a league game against Getafe. It will be interesting to see how the supporters react."