Mane was 'unbelievable' against Barcelona - Liverpool assistant coach Krawietz

Liverpool assistant manager Peter Krawietz has described Sadio Mane as the 'most unbelievable player' in their 4-0 thrashing of Barcelona in the Champions League match in 2019.

The German coach singled out the Senegal international for praise on the occasion of his fifth anniversary at the club.

Mane has proven to be an all-round player in Jurgen Klopp’s team since his signing from Southampton in 2016, and he has a tally of 97 goals so far in over 200 games in all competitions.

“We all know Sadio wants to score goals as well, but the value he has for us is different,” Krawietz told the club website.

“To give one example, in our famous 4-0 win against Barcelona in the Champions League semi-final Sadio didn’t score. But one thing is clear for us, for everybody in the coaching staff and for the manager as well: that the most unbelievable game and the most unbelievable player on the pitch was Sadio Mane. That day, he was not-to-stop. He defended everything and he was dribbling with the ball, he was the value of two players in one. He was just everywhere!”

In that fixture at Anfield, two goals each from Georginio Wijnaldum and Divock Origi helped the Reds overturn a three-goal deficit with a 4-3 aggregate win that powered them to the victorious final.

“We have that in our mind [and] everybody who was in the stadium saw that. In the statistics books, there are of course the goals and he didn’t score, but everybody who saw that game saw that it was one of the most unbelievable performances of an offensive player I ever saw,” Krawietz continued.

“This is a little bit the problem with all these awards and statistics. Everybody is looking at the guys who are scoring the goals but like I said, there is no measurement for playing a good performance apart from successful passes, goals and whatever.

“But all these other things, it is not possible to express them in numbers and this is a little bit the thing where we feel the value of Sadio and this is why we appreciate it so much what he is doing for years for this team.”