Barcola's Hat-Trick Papers Over Liverpool's Defensive Cracks at LASK
Bradley Barcola ended his goal drought with a Champions League treble as Liverpool won 6-3 at LASK, but Andoni Iraola's side conceded three times after making defensive changes.
Liverpool scored six and conceded three away at LASK in the Champions League on Wednesday, a result that answered one question about Bradley Barcola's form while raising another about Andoni Iraola's defence.
Barcola, who had struggled to find his scoring touch since his move from Paris Saint-Germain, scored three times at Raiffeisen Arena to record his first senior hat-trick, according to The Analyst (Opta). It came on what Opta's figures describe as the 238th appearance of his senior career across club and country.
Liverpool led inside half an hour through Ronald Araujo, who headed in from a Kostas Tsimikas corner in the 22nd minute. Barcola doubled the lead within 96 seconds of that goal, finishing after Lewis Koumas supplied the ball, then added his second just before half-time by converting a pass from Florian Wirtz.
Barcola and Wirtz turn a problem position into a strength
Wirtz had come in for criticism from Liverpool great Jamie Carragher following the previous weekend's 3-0 defeat to Manchester City, Liverpool's first loss under Iraola. Iraola kept faith with both Wirtz and Barcola against LASK, and the pairing produced Liverpool's most productive attacking half in the competition's recorded history: 19 shots in the opening 45 minutes, the most by an away side in a Champions League first half on record, per The Analyst.
That volume translated into a 3-0 interval lead, the first time Liverpool have gone three goals clear by half-time in the competition since April 2018, when they led Manchester City by the same scoreline. Tsimikas, deputising as captain, set up six chances in total including two assists, driving much of the creative work behind the front two.
Liverpool's attacking numbers for the match back up the eye test: 3.34 expected goals from 26 shots, a total that reflects not just chance volume but the quality of the positions Barcola and Wirtz were finding in behind LASK's backline.
Three changes, three goals conceded
The game's second half told a different story. Jeremie Frimpong headed in Liverpool's fourth from another Tsimikas cross early in the half, but Iraola then made his first alteration, bringing on Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez at centre-back. Within moments of the substitution, Yvan Dibango found Robert Ljubicic, who drilled LASK's first goal past the new-look back line.
Liverpool restored their four-goal cushion soon after through Barcola's third, and Koumas then became the youngest player to score and assist in a Champions League match for Liverpool at 21 years and 25 days, breaking a record Steven Gerrard had held at 21 years and 139 days, Opta's data shows.
Yet the defending did not tighten. Dibango set up Florian Flecker to head in from close range for LASK's second, with Van Dijk and Gomez again caught square, and then teed up Flecker again in the 77th minute for a third. Dibango finished with an assist on all three of LASK's goals, a rare individual contribution in a losing effort — LASK still generated 2.02 expected goals of their own, a respectable return against a side six goals to the good.
What the scoreline obscures
A 6-3 scoreline reads as comfortable, and in the context of three points and progress through the group it was. But the pattern of LASK's goals, two of them arriving after Iraola had already made defensive substitutions, suggests the issues that surfaced in the Manchester City defeat were not fully resolved, only outscored. Iraola's decision to rest Van Dijk from the start and field one of Liverpool's youngest-ever Champions League line-ups was a reasonable one given the scale of the eventual lead, but the manner of LASK's response will be the part of the match he dwells on.
The numbers around the occasion underline how unusual it was. This was Liverpool's highest-scoring European match since the 2001 UEFA Cup final, when they beat Alaves 5-4, and only four Champions League matches on record have featured more total goals than the nine scored in Linz. It was also just the third time Liverpool have scored six or more in a European away fixture, following a 7-0 win at Maribor in 2017 and a 7-1 win at Rangers in 2022.
Barcola's treble was Liverpool's first hat-trick in any competition since Luis Diaz scored one against Bayer Leverkusen in November 2024, a reminder of how rare the feat has been even for a team that scores freely. For Iraola, the night offered proof that his most expensive attacking additions can deliver in bulk. It also offered a second successive reminder, after the City defeat, that goals at the other end keep arriving too easily.