Bigger things were unfolding in the Middle East at that time, but the night of Dec 11, 2022 was significant for Liverpool and Bradley Barcola.
Some 24 hours earlier, France had beaten England 2-1 in the World Cup quarter-final in Qatar. Across the Gulf in Dubai, however, preparations for the resumption of domestic football stepped up a notch as Liverpool played Lyon in the Dubai Super Cup.
Jürgen Klopp had most of his big names on hand, as Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino and Thiago Alcantara all started and the match could not have got off to a better start in the Al-Maktoum Stadium when Fabio Carvalho put Liverpool ahead.
The game changed dramatically in the second half, though, when Barcola arrived. Lyon’s team was full of talent – it featured Rayan Cherki, Malo Gusto, Houssem Aouar, along with the nous of Alex Lacazette – but it was the young winger with the electric gear change who set tongues wagging.
Liverpool’s scouting department never forgets when a player thrives against them and Barcola did just that. He scored the second in a 3-1 win, threatened each time he got the ball and, for good measure, the then 20-year-old whipped in a penalty in an organised shoot-out afterwards.
It was clear to Liverpool then that they had to follow Barcola’s progress. They debated signing him 12 months ago, when he was available for £70m, but they didn’t want to put an obstacle in the way of Rio Ngumoha. Now, however, a four-year pursuit is on the cusp of concluding.
Following a breakthrough in negotiations between Liverpool and Paris St-Germain, with the Anfield club having made a proposal of a guaranteed £100m with £20m in add-ons, Barcola has a chance to show the wider public what he showed to a crowd of 5,000 in Dubai.
On the surface, everything looks outstanding. Barcola has matured into an established France international, with 28 caps and who has been part of an all-conquering PSG squad that has amassed 13 major honours in the last three years.
Yet his imminent arrival on Merseyside poses a significant question: how does Andoni Iraola get a forward line that could eventually cost £361m firing? Barcola, Alexander Isak (£125m) and Florian Wirtz (£116m) resemble a PlayStation line-up, but this is real life.
Plenty who have watched Liverpool closely over the last decade will see their third nine-figure outlay and be reminded of the quote Klopp famously gave in July 2016 when discussing the state of the transfer market.
“If one player pushes 11 from last season on to the next level, imagine what that will mean?” Klopp said, during a meeting with national newspaper reporters at a hotel in Pasadena. “That is how it works. If you bring one player in for £100m or whatever, and he gets injured, then it all goes through the chimney.
“The day that this is football, I’m not in a job anymore, because the game is about playing together. That is how everybody in football understands it. You always want to have the best, but building the group is necessary to be successful. Other clubs can spend more money. I want to do it differently.”
It was widely interpreted that Klopp had launched an attack on Manchester United for signing Paul Pogba (£90m) at the time, but the reality was the answer was given after it was put to him that a section of Liverpool fans had wanted him to sign Henrikh Mkhitaryan rather than the then unheralded Sadio Mane.
Liverpool, of course, had no option but to spend big in the end to get to where they wanted, but the point Klopp made about things going up in smoke if a big money transfer gets injured was absolutely correct. Look at the effect not having Isak had on the team for much of last season, for instance.
We may have become immune to big transfer fees, as they are occurring increasingly – Barcola, if and when confirmed, will be the fifth deal above £100m of this summer alone – but there simply must come a point when they deliver.
Wirtz’s start to the season at Newcastle was inauspicious while we could be generous and say that Isak was on the periphery of the 2-2 draw; the Swede didn’t get any proper strikes at goal and never looked like making a significant impact.
“He had a fantastic World Cup,” Virgil Van Dijk said. “He is fit and looks very sharp in training and I have full confidence he will be very important for us. He wants to be successful. It is down to all of us to make him successful – but also up to him to make it successful as well. We need to be together.”
The three that need to be together, more than ever, going forward are Barcola, Isak and Wirtz, along with whoever arrives to take the place Salah vacated on the right flank – again, it is going to cost Liverpool big money to do that, too.
A new quadrant will come in at more than £400m and how it makes you think: it cost a combined £99.9m to assemble one of the club’s greatest forward lines in Salah (£36.9m), Mane (£34m) and Roberto Firmino (£29m) – a smidgeon short of one Barcola.
That triumvirate, with their intensity, work rate and ruthlessness to go with all their skill, provides the template for those who follow them. Barcola showed four years ago why he had the talent to be a Liverpool player. The onus will be on him, Wirtz and Isak to prove they can do it. And that is something completely different.