Lionel Messi was outstanding as Barcelona thumped Liverpool 3-0 in the first-leg of their Champions League semifinal.

The Reds were in the ascendancy despite going behind to Luis Suarez's first-half strike - but they were then hit by a double sucker-punch from the Barcelona number 10.

The Argentine forward's first was instinctive, as he followed up Suarez's shot that came off the bar, but the second was majestic as he found Alisson's top-right corner from 25 yards out. That was his 600th goal for the Spanish giants.

Reds boss Jurgen Klopp lamented afterwards: "Football is like this. It's about scoring goals, and they scored three and we scored none.

"Our performance was really good, the boys played a super game. But against Barcelona just a few opportunities can be enough [for them].

"I was happy with the performance, not too happy with the result. That's football. It was a hard result but we have to accept it."

He continued: "Let's recover now, go to Newcastle and learn from it.

"Barcelona showed they had more experience. We saw that in the moments when they stopped our rythym, going down, but that's part of the game.

"3-0 is not the easiest result but we we have another game [second leg] and our people will be there."

Klopp concluded: "How we caused them problems was outstanding and we controlled the game in the second half. It was bad defending for the first goal but 1-0 is not a big problem.

"Going out for the second half, I don't know if we can play much better. But they had one moment against the crossbar and then Lionel Messi's there for an easy goal, and the other one is a wonder strike. It was unsaveable."